MONTREAL - A pair of nurses have lost the right to practise the profession after feeding their addictions by stealing morphine from a hospital drug supply and, in one nurse's case, directly from suffering patients.
Quebec's order of nurses pulled Denis Dorval's licence for three years and Shawn Fraticelli's for one year. They worked at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital.
The two men admitted they used morphine and dilauded that was intended for use by patients in serious pain over a stretch in 2004 and 2005. The hospital fired the men in 2005.
The order said in a recently published judgment that "these acts were very serious and cannot be tolerated in any way.''
If the nurses are reinstated and find new jobs, they will be under strict supervision for two more years.
Fraticelli admitted in a tribunal hearing that he started using morphine after hurting his back on the job.
Dorval admitted that, in addition to swiping from the drug stock, he sometimes swapped patients' morphine for saline solution so he could inject the drugs instead.
Dorval also admitted to falsifying documents to cover his tracks.
The order's judgment noted that Dorval put his patients in danger by getting stoned at work. Other nurses refused to work with him as he showed up to work "glassy-eyed, pasty-mouthed and aggressive.''
Months of drug use by both men was eventually uncovered after nurses found discrepancies in drug inventories and became suspicious of their behaviour.
Lynne McVey, director of nursing at the hospital, says new high-tech systems are now in place to secure drugs and keep close track of inventories.
Instead of having to count every pill and vial of narcotics at the end of every shift, they now use an electronic dispensing machine that takes a thumb scan from nurses.
Counting drugs "was a heck of a job,'' McVey said.
"The new system allows nurses to spend more time where they belong -- at the bedside.''
Given that many nurses work around narcotics every day, McVey said drug abusers remain "a surprisingly very small minority element in our profession.''
The judgment notes that both men stayed clean after they were fired in the spring of 2005.
Fraticelli showed "a lot of honesty, frankness and transparency'' in his testimony and guilty plea, said the judgment signed by three adjudicators.
Naomi Chemtob, the local president of the union that represents the nurses, says nurses have many avenues to deal with stress.
The union helped support the two nurses, who were given sick leave and medical help, including a couple of attempts at detox and methadone treatment.
"But people are sick sometimes,'' Chemtob said.
"If you're a nurse and you're burned out, you can go to any doctor these days and the doctor will give you medication that will help. This must have been something that went beyond that.''
