Nancy Nyaboke Nyaswenta: Nurse has registration cancelled after attending work with blood-alcohol of 0.235

A nurse who attended work drunk and refused to comply with strict conditions on her nursing registration has been banned from practising for more than a year. The State Administrative Tribunal found Nancy Nyaboke Nyaswenta had engaged in professional misconduct, cancelled her registration and banned her from re-registering for 15 months. Nancy Nyaboke Nyaswenta was contracted by Auscare Group for an overnight shift at a residential aged care facility in Kelmscott, Juniper Sarah Hardey, on May 12, 2024. Her nursing registration was already under scrutiny, after previous notifications to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency in 2022 and 2023 resulted in conditions on her registration. Per those conditions, Nyaswenta was not allowed to be the only nurse on-site at the health service at which she was working, had to provide the details of the senior person at each place of practice, and was meant to be under the treatment of a GP. But the former registered nurse disregarded those conditions, attending the aged care home inebriated before collapsing in the early hours of May 13, 2024. The tribunal’s findings detailed “colleagues reported smelling alcohol on her breath and heard the Respondent (Nyaswenta) respond ‘yes’ twice when paramedics asked her if she had been drinking and if she was drunk”. She was taken to Armadale Hospital via ambulance, where she blew a blood-alcohol level of 0.235. Medical records noted a principal diagnosis of “toxicology- + withdrawal and dependence syndromes — alcohol intoxication”. On May 31, Nyaswenta voluntarily admitted herself to Fiona Stanley Hospital for treatment for alcohol withdrawal. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia was notified of the incident, suspended her registration and referred the matter to the tribunal. Nyaswenta was subsequently diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder on August 22, 2024. The assessing doctor, Glenys Dore, said the disorder “detrimentally affects the Respondent’s (Nyaswenta’s) capacity to practise her profession and detrimentally affected her capacity to practise during the overnight shift from 12 to 13 May 2024”. It was also revealed in the tribunal’s findings that Nyaswenta had breached several conditions on her registration by being the only nurse on-site at two facilities in May, and being unable to prove she was under GP treatment. She was the only nurse rostered on a night shift at Mercy Care in Kelmscott on May 11, 2024, as well as the following overnight shift at Juniper Sarah Hardey on May 12, 2024. Her nominated GP, Raad Hassan, was unable to reach Nyaswenta on several occasions for a follow-up appointment, which led to him notifying the nursing board he was withdrawing his nomination. The tribunal ruled Nyaswenta met the statutory requirements of an impairment, disqualified her from applying for registration for 15 months, and ordered her to contribute to the board’s legal costs.