A ZIMBABWEAN nurse who stripped and shouted at an elderly British woman before leaving her standing in full view of other patients has been struck off.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council heard that Memory Musekiwa, 35, of Walsall, shouted at the weeping pensioner who had wet herself while she was being treated at Worcester Royal Hospital.
Musekiwa allegedly yelled at the pensioner: “I give you a buzzer and you wet all over the floor, now I've got to clean this mess up.”
She appeared before the NMC’s Conduct & Competence Committee this week charged with shouting at a patient, failing to promote a patient’s privacy and dignity, using force with a patient, and refusing to wash a patient.
The patient, who was in her late seventies, “cried and cried” following Musekiwa's “brutal” behaviour, the NMC heard at a hearing on Tuesday.
Musekiwa, shouted, removed the woman's nightdress and then left her with no curtain around her, said Salim Hafejee for the NMC.
“She then pushed Patient A on to a commode and told her to stay there while she went to get a mop,” he told the panel. “When Patient A asked to be washed, she refused and put a clean nightdress on her.”
He added: “She failed to appropriately deal with a patient who found herself in a situation where she could not help herself. She did not protect this patient's dignity.”
Fellow patient Julie Owen sobbed as she told the misconduct panel that she had been woken by the elderly woman asking for help that night, before hearing the nurse telling the patient off.
“Then she took Patient A's nightdress and underwear off and left her standing there while she went to fetch a mop and bucket,” she said.
“At no point were the curtains put around her. Her dignity was completely stripped. There was no delicacy. No bowl was brought to wash Patient A with.
“There was no cleanliness. She had wet herself and the nurse was putting clean clothes on an unclean body. I clearly heard Patient A say to her ‘don't be so brutal’.
“After the nurse had gone, Patient A just sat on her bed and cried and cried.”
Musekiwa said she was disappointed details of the hearing had leaked to the media after the NMC promised her no journalists would be allowed in the hearings. She denied any wrong-doing but declined an offer to give her side of the story.
“Those who know me, and I wish you did, know that I am not like that. But there is really no point in me trying to put my side of the story out there. People will believe what they want to believe,” she said.
She can appeal against the ruling.