A heartless nurse has been banned for life after stealing money from two hospital patients, including a dying woman, forging registration certificates and injecting patients with drugs against direct orders. Danielle Jones committed eight separate incidents of professional misconduct over almost four years to 2015, in what the South Australian Health Practitioners Tribunal described as “a grave departure” from expected nursing standards. And in a damning judgment, the tribunal found that Jones had shown “no remorse or insight” into her flagrant dishonesty, forgery of documents and the flouting of conditions on her licence. “She clearly is not a fit and proper person to be registered,” tribunal president Michael Ardlie said. “By her lack of participation in these proceedings and in not providing any explanation for what should be regarded as extremely serious conduct, (Jones) was clearly someone who had shown absolutely no insight into her behaviour at all and exhibited no demonstration of remorse.” The tribunal has banned Jones from working in any capacity within the medical industry, after receiving information she had been trying to qualify as a paramedic. The most serious incidents involved the theft of cash from two female patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on the same day in April 2013. Jones was caught red-handed stealing $700 from the wallet of a patient after she also stole $20 from the purse of a seriously ill woman, who died several weeks later. The Tribunal took action against Jones over repeated complaints of professional misconduct between 2011 and 2015. When working at Ashford Hospital as a student nurse in August 2011, Jones injected a patient with blood-thinning drug clexane against specific directions, then lied that a senior nurse had supervised her. After changing her version of events several times, Jones finally admitted she had injected the patient against specific warnings that student nurses could only do so under strict supervision. After a formal warning, Jones again committed the same offence at Royal Adelaide Hospital in May 2012, by giving a patient Ibuprofen, then forging the initials of a senior nurse on the patient’s medical chart. Again, Jones tried to lie her way out by claiming she had “accidentally” written the senior nurse’s initials before covering them with her own. Later in 2012, Jones forged a certificate falsely claiming she had completed a professional development course in an application to work with the Nursing Agency of SA. In November 2012, the Nursing and Midwifery Board imposed conditions on Jones’ registration, before learning she had been working at the QEH for the past six months, and had failed to notify the hospital of the restrictions on her licence. In April 2013, Jones was caught by a female patient in the QEH holding the woman’s wallet and an amount of cash, before stuffing the money inside her top and then into a pillow case.
