An experienced nurse’s registration has been torn up after she was distracted by her laptop as a baby she was meant to be caring for turned blue, unable to breathe.
It was one of three troubling incidents involving Vickie Wade when she worked in the neonatal intensive care unit at Starship Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand, between November 2019 and February 2020.
Wade was charged by the Professional Conduct Committee over claims she compromised the health and safety of two infants in her care and acted inappropriately with the mother of a third.
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According to a ruling from the Health Practitioner’s Disciplinary Tribunal, Wade failed to act when an infant’s monitor flashed red and displayed “apnoea” — signalling breathing difficulties — during a December shift.
A fellow nurse working in another room assumed Wade would tend to the infant but stepped in when the alarm continued.
She found the child was turning blue, with its oxygen levels critically low at 20 per cent and its heart rate below normal range.
According to the nurse, Wade was sitting in a La-Z-Boy chair with her laptop on her knees and headphones in.
Despite being asked, Wade was reluctant to record the matter in red writing to signify serious intervention was needed and only noted parts of the incident.
Just five minutes later, Wade was back in the chair with her laptop.
The infant, who was just six months old, was likely to develop chronic lung disease.
A nursing manager told the tribunal the child had several issues during the shift before Wade started work that day and needed to be watched closely.
Wade was put before a disciplinary meeting on February 11 when it was claimed she offered “contradictory” explanations for her actions.
She denied wearing headphones and said she was completing professional development on her laptop.
Two days later a similar incident occurred — this time involving a seven-month-old child.
On this occasion, a nurse claimed she saw Wade get up from a recliner and turn off an alarm without tending to the child.
When the nurse checked herself, the baby was “dusky, pale and greyish” with low oxygen levels and a low heart rate.
She was about to use an infant resuscitator when the baby started to recover.
In a third incident, a bedridden mother who was in severe pain following a caesarean delivery complained Wade told her she was too busy to help her hold her child.
Following the complaint, the mother said Wade was “incredibly cold” and made her feel “unwelcome”.
Tribunal ruling
Wade — who gained her nursing registration in 2002 — was charged and a tribunal hearing, which she did not attend, was held in November.
In its ruling released this week, the tribunal found Wade’s actions in the first two incidents, when she was distracted, amounted to malpractice and negligence.
The tribunal found it was “doubtful” she was completing training on her laptop and that, even if she was, it was “unacceptable” to be wearing headphones and being distracted from her main job.
On the third complaint, the tribunal said Wade’s actions amounted to negligence and said she acted unprofessionally.
“The established conduct is objectively very serious,” the tribunal said.
“As counsel for the PCC notes, infants within the NICU are among the most vulnerable groups a registered nurse can care for.
“While there is no evidence of harm arising to the infants, this was due to the care provided by other nurses who had their own responsibilities, and in spite of the practitioner’s repeated indifference to her professional duties.”
The tribunal cancelled Wade’s nursing registration, censured her and ordered her to pay more than $33,000 in legal costs.
