A nurse who took codeine, tramadol and diazepam from Dunedin Hospital had returned to the United Kingdom and did not defend a professional misconduct charge brought before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal.
The tribunal issued its written finding yesterday, after a June 9 hearing in Dunedin. Julie Powell was formally censured, and the tribunal cancelled her New Zealand registration, and ordered her to pay $16,000 towards hearing costs, after finding the charge proved.
Ms Powell was recruited from the United Kingdom and started work at Dunedin Hospital in April 2012. Not long after she started the job, an ''unusual spike'' in the use of codeine, tramadol and diazepam tablets was noted in the ward's June 2012 pharmacy report. The drugs were taken over a two month period in ward 8A.
Dunedin Hospital chief pharmacist Craig MacKenzie told the hearing 320 capsules of medication had been sent by the hospital pharmacy to the ward in July, which appeared to be ''the highest amount we have ever sent in one month to ward 8A''.
A pattern was noticed between Ms Powell's shifts and the thefts, and the police were called.
The discrepancies included more than 200 codeine 30mg tablets, 70 codeine 60mg tablets, about 350 tramadol 50mg capsules, and more than 50 diazepam 5mg tablets.
A search warrant executed at her address found tramadol that matched the batch of hospital tramadol.
A few days before police searched her home, Ms Powell had told charge nurse manager Lianne van Egdom she had been ''experiencing incredible back pain for the last five to six weeks''.
At a sentencing hearing in the Dunedin District Court on September 12, 2012, Judge Stephen O'Driscoll discharged Ms Powell, then aged 40, without conviction after she had admitted, at a court hearing on August 13, a charge of theft involving taking 50 tramadol tablets, 40 60mg codeine tablets, and 51 30mg codeine tablets, on July 19.
