A psychological well being nurse has been suspended from observe and should face additional actions following an intimate relationship and “sexual encounter” with a jail inmate.

The Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) mentioned the nurse, who was primarily based in a jail, had carried out greater than 100 periods with the inmate between October 2019 and September 2021, nevertheless proof counsel their relationship turned extra private of their closing two months collectively.

According to an investigation report by Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Dr Vanessa Caldwell, a telephone quantity listed beneath a pseudonym was authorised by the jail for the inmate to make use of in July 2021.

In their telephone conversations, the thriller individual — later revealed to be the nurse — mentioned at totally different factors they had been “early today”, “finishing work early” or “working from home”, which coincided with the nurse’s schedule and clock-in/clock-out occasions.

The relationship first got here to mild after the inmate was discovered with contraband in 2021, and the jail’s website emergency response workforce started to observe his telephone calls, together with discussions with the nurse that had been “sexually explicit”.

The nurse and inmate had been recorded on at the least 5 events calling one another totally different nicknames, together with “my darling”, “my baby”, “beautiful” and “gorgeous”.

In late September 2021, jail video footage seen by a major well being organisation (PHO) and the HDC confirmed “inappropriate physical contact” between the nurse and inmate, who at one level left the interview room collectively and went to an space not fully seen to the digital camera for round 90 seconds.

The similar day, after the video was reviewed by the jail supervisor and PHO supervisor, the nurse was addressed concerning the scenario, didn’t reply to allegations and was escorted out of the jail along with her belongings.

She formally resigned the following day, and three days after that despatched an e mail to the inmate, writing “Be safe my darling and I hope I hear from you one day. If I don’t, well I still wouldn’t change a thing.”

Caldwell mentioned it was clear the nurse and inmate “had a personal and intimate relationship”.

“The nurse’s relationship with [the inmate] breaches fundamental ethical standards, given the power imbalance between clinician and patient,” she wrote in a concluding assertion.

“I do not consider that such a relationship being consensual alters this fact. This power imbalance will always mean there is the potential for abuse of the nurse’s professional position and harm to the health consumer.”

Caldwell counseled the PHO for its immediate actions and implementation of a supervision coverage after the actual fact, in the end deciding that it didn’t break the Code (of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights) and that the nurse acted individually.

The nurse has since been suspended from observe and her title has been faraway from the register of nurses.

Caldwell referred the nurse to the Director of Proceedings for “breaching professional boundaries” and has really helpful the Nursing Council of New Zealand decide crucial situations to be imposed, corresponding to coaching and supervision, ought to she return to observe.