A nurse who beat his daughter with a rolling pin for 20 minutes after a boy was allowed into their home has been suspended from medical practice for a month. The man, who cannot be named, had his nurses’ registration suspended by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal earlier this month. The married man assaulted his then 16-year-old daughter with a wooden rolling pin in June 2018 to get her to tell him about a boy and why he’d been allowed into their home. The teenager was hospitalised with bruising and swelling to her body. Her father admitted he had been the attacker before he was charged. A family violence intervention order was issued in August 2018 to prevent him entering the family home. He also has two sons. The man’s conduct and failure to tell the nursing board he had been charged amounts to professional misconduct and unprofessional conduct respectively, VCAT held. A formal reprimand will appear against his registration on the national health regulator agency’s website, the order states. While he has shown “some insight” into his actions, he’s not “demonstrated a deep understanding of the effect of the transgression on the victim and the reputation of health practitioners and the profession in general”. “We consider that family violence of the kind perpetrated by [the man] would, in contemporary society and nursing practice, be regarded as conduct that is ‘disgraceful’,” the decision states. He has previously pleaded guilty to common assault in a Victorian court and was placed on a good behaviour bond, had to pay $1500 and undertake a men’s behaviour change program. Character references stated the assault was out of character as a father and nurse. His wife, who is also a nurse, has been diagnosed with a malignancy in her liver, leaving him as the only working member in the family and they may need to sell the home. “The fact that [he] is suspended for a period will serve to put nursing and other health practitioners on notice that family violence is not acceptable,” the decision states. The length of the suspension, which starts on February 26, may allow him to serve it while on leave from work and without necessarily losing his job.
