Nurse Had Sex with Critically Ill Patient

(News Today) - A nurse has been suspended for having an affair with a heart and lung transplant patient. Rebecca Bayliss, 29, met the man on her ward when he was receiving treatment for cystic fibrosis while on the donor waiting list.

After he was discharged they began a three-month sexual relationship, which continued despite him returning to hospital for the life-saving operation.

The nurse, who had a boyfriend at the time, joked to colleagues that she would have to turn up his oxygen and give him nebulisers – medication inhaled in mist form – before her trysts with him.

The man, identified only as ‘Patient A’, later told investigators the affair ‘certainly didn’t help my recovery’.

Shocked managers at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital referred Bayliss to the Nursing and Midwifery Council after the patient confided in a clinical psychologist.

On Tuesday an NMC hearing in London found Bayliss, who did not attend, guilty of having a sexual relationship with the man and suspended her for 12 months.

The panel was told Patient A was admitted to the hospital in February 2008 in preparation for an operation to receive a new heart and lungs.

Bayliss cared for the sick man on her ward but quickly fell ‘in love’ with him and they started an ‘intense sexual relationship’.

The nurse, who had worked for Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust since 2006, even boasted about the affair on her page on the Facebook website, saying she was ‘excited’.

Managers discovered the relationship when the transplant patient told a hospital psychologist.

Bayliss, from Walsall, West Midlands, was reprimanded by senior hospital staff and banned from contacting Patient A.

But she continued to pester him to restart their relationship. He later told investigators that the affair had affected his health.

He said: ‘I could have done without the stress. It certainly didn’t help my recovery.’

Nurse Laura Grant, who worked with Bayliss, told the hearing: ‘Rebecca wrote on Facebook that she was excited.

‘She told me that she was seeing someone other than her partner. A week later she told me that the man was a patient on the ward.

‘We talked about how inappropriate it was and I advised her to tell the management what was going on.’

Colleague Laura Barlow, said: ‘She said that she had fallen in love with the man. I was totally shocked.’

NMC panel member Salim Hefejee, said: ‘Rebecca Bayliss engaged in a wholly unprofessional and unacceptable relationship.

‘Patient A was vulnerable and suffering from a significant illness. The turmoil of the relationship had an adverse affect on him, causing stress and upset.

‘Although the relationship was consensual, the patient was particularly vulnerable by reason of his serious medical condition and his relative social isolation.

'This action was serious and amounts to conduct unworthy of a nurse.’

The panel found Bayliss guilty of entering into a sexual relationship with a patient between February 2008 and May 2008.

She was also found guilty of failing to inform her manager of the relationship and failing to maintain professional boundaries with the patient.

Source : kompas

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