Nurse who stole painkillers found guilty of misconduct

A nurse who stole painkillers from a care home has been found guilty of professional misconduct, after failing to adhere to conditions attached to her continued registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) following the incident.

Anja Pawlak, who is now thought to have left the country, had been caught taking the medication and consuming them while on duty at an unspecified nursing home.

She was previously censored following an initial fitness to practice inquiry in 2010, and a number of conditions were attached to her ongoing registration as a nurse in the State, supported by a High Court order in May 2011.

These included that she attend an addiction counsellor, give regular urine tests and inform any subsequent employer of the conditions attached to her registration.

This arrangement was to continue for a period of two years.

At Tuesday’s hearing, brought about by Ms Pawlak’s failure to comply with those conditions, the inquiry heard multiple efforts had been made to contact her without success.

These efforts included the posting of a number of letters to three different addresses.

One of the addresses was in Germany, where Ms Pawlak trained and registered as a nurse in 1995. She registered in Ireland in 2005.

Ms Pawlak did not attend the previous inquiry, which had heard that on one or more occasion she had taken Zydol, a powerful painkiller.

The inquiry heard that, at an internal meeting at the nursing home where she worked, Ms Pawlak denied all knowledge of the tablets in question, which she had concealed in a bathroom bin in order not to get caught.

The inquiry was told that she had consumed the painkillers while on duty and that this would have affected her performance.

Original sanctions

In the aftermath of the original sanctions, Ms Pawlak had initially contacted the board to confirm that she was adhering to the conditions set out by the inquiry.

However, after March 2012 she no longer attended the addiction counsellor and, it was believed, left the country.

Following her earlier compliance, her counsellor had told the board that Ms Pawlak had moved past her addiction, she had not taken painkillers since 2010, and that she was ready to put the issue behind her.

Three urine tests had also been negative.

However, following her disappearance, the NMBI sought to contact her to warn her of the consequences of non-compliance with the conditions, namely that the matter would be reopened.

Ms Pawlak was asked to contact the board urgently.

In August 2013, further efforts were made to inform her that a complaint was being made to the preliminary proceedings committee in advance of a fresh hearing to address her non-compliance.

There was no formal contestation of two charges of professional misconduct on Tuesday, both of which were upheld by the committee.