Council suspends QECH nurse for beating patient
The Nurses and Midwives Council has interdicted the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) nurse (name withheld) who in the early hours of Monday this week allegedly beat up an accident victim with a metal before she was restrained by fellow medical personnel and other patients.
Following an article published in The Nation newspaper on Wednesday, the Nurses and Midwives Council—a government subvented parastatal mandated by the Nurses and Midwives Act to regulate nursing and midwifery services in the country—instituted an enquiry, according to the council’s registrar Martha Mondiwa.
In a statement made available to The Nation on Thursday, the council said the nurse will be on interdiction pending a determination of the complaint against her by the Investigation Committee of the Council.
The council said it is disappointed with the recent developments of unprofessional behaviour of some nurses and midwives such as sleeping while on duty at night, beating patients, use of abusive language and unprofessional and disgraceful behaviour.
Mondiwa said the Nurses and Midwives Council has a toll free line 80008111 for the public to report any issues pertaining to nurses and midwives behaviour—both positive and negative. She said the main objective of the toll free line is to assist patients and clients.
On the Monday incident at QECH, sources said police brought two accident victims, one who had died was at the hospital’s mortuary and the injured one was left in the emergency ward.
The incident comes three weeks after The Nation published a story revealing the bad treatment some nurses at the country’s largest referral hospital give to patients.
