Wallsend aged care nurse reprimanded over care of 82-year-old man during his second shift

The Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted the complaint against Thamsanqa Ndiweni, a registered nurse working at the SummitCare Aged Care Facility at Wallsend as an agency nurse.

The complaint involves Mr Ndiweni's interactions with an 82-year-old man in December 2019, when he inappropriately removed the patient's catheter, and then failed to get help when complications occurred.

It was only Mr Ndiweni's second shift at SummitCare after he accepted an offer from Caring for You Nursing Agency to work at the at the aged care and nursing home facility.

At handover, one of the evening nurses asked if he could change the catheter of the 82-year-old man who was due his six weekly change.

At 2am the next morning he began to change the catheter with the help of an assistant nurse. However, while removing the catheter he injured the patient's urethra, causing bleeding.

About a half hour later Mr Ndiweni attempted to insert a new catheter, but instead caused further bleeding. He did not get any help or assistance until he called the facility's executive about an hour later who told him to call an ambulance.

When handing over to the ambulance officers Mr Ndiweni provided limited and incomplete information, the commission found. Furthermore the clinical notes he made that evening were also limited and incomplete.

The commission heard that since first becoming registered as a nurse in Australia in December, 2012, he had worked almost exclusively as a mental health nurse, and had only been responsible for inserting a catheter twice before, the last time being about three or four years previously.

Mr Ndiweni admitted almost all aspects of the complaint made against him at a hearing conducted over two days, on February 28 and March 1.

As well as reprimanding Mr Ndiweni, the commission placed restrictions on his practise outside of a mental health care facility to ensure he is not the sole registered nurse on shift, and he is not the nurse in charge.

"He may have been wanting to be helpful but too easily that lead him to undertake a task that was not necessary and to make several clinical errors," the commission found. "Despite being out of his depth and things going wrong he did not seek assistance, with consequences for the patient."

He was also directed to advise the Nursing and Midwifery Council of NSW at least seven days before changing the nature or place of practice as a nurse.

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