A NURSE who abused elderly patients while working in a position he was not qualified for has been struck off by a medical tribunal.
Ian Nesbitt led an elderly man round the room by the genitals and twisted female patients' arms behind their heads to discipline them at the home where he worked, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard yesterday.
The committee was also told how he stood on patients' feet, dragged a blind woman in her 90s down a corridor, hit another in the legs with a chair and force-fed patients with medication.
On September 6, 1999, he failed to call a doctor when a patient - resident J - was found unconscious and bleeding from his nose and mouth and who later died.
Nesbitt faced seven charges of professional misconduct at the Nursing and Midwifery Council for incidents while working at Maple Court Nursing Home, Green Park, in Penketh, Warrington and was struck off yesterday.
Helen Kitchen, solicitor for the NMC, said Nesbitt was only regis-tered as a general enrolled nurse, but was working as a registered mental nurse at the home.
But he was taken on as a temporary nurse at the home for 32 patients in November 1997 and was later made unit manager.
Then in September 1999, two colleagues - one of them a cleaner - made complaints about his rough handling of the residents.
Nesbitt, of Chester, was dismissed in December 2000 for gross misconduct after fraudulently filling in time sheets. He had also received a written warning for failing to make records regarding the running of the home.
Nurse Mary Turner said in a statement: "Resident J was not well so I went up to check on him.
"I found him unconscious and there was blood coming from his nose and mouth. I rushed downstairs and found Mr Nesbitt. I asked him to call the doctor.
"He did not seem to be worried about the seriousness of the situation. He didn't call the doctor, I did. The patient died."
Care assistant Pamela Overton told the tribunal: "A resident went into the kitchen area and was just about to urinate on the floor.
"Nesbitt went in front of him and I can only presume he grabbed his private parts because the man cried out and was protesting.
"He had hold of him on the zip area of his trousers and the resident was pushed back in to the dining room."
Mrs Overton, who also worked as a cleaner, told of a catalogue of attacks on other elderly residents.
She said he ripped a bandage off the arm of one woman and added: "She [the patient] was saying 'Ooh, look at all that blood' because she did not know what was happening. It was running down the chair on the carpet."
She also told how he ran into one elderly patient "at speed" with a wheelchair.
She added: "He knew she was there and he didn't slow down."
Committee chairman Christina Funnell said: "The committee found overwhelming evidence that Mr Nesbitt consistently failed to provide standards laid out by the code of conduct and as a result vulnerable elderly people were at grave risk."
Nesbitt was not present, but said in a phone call he had not worked as a nurse for two years...SUPL:
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