A staff nurse at North Devon District Hospital thought it was OK to take a used syringe out of a sharps bin and claimed she didn’t know that it was inappropriate to give medication that had been in a sharps bin.

A professional hearing has banned Loraine McDonald from nursing for 18 months after they heard how colleagues emailed managers because they were so worried about her care for patients on a number of different wards including Glossop, King George V and Capener Ward.

She admitted that in August 2015 she “retrieved a syringe of Oramorph from the sharps bin” and claimed that she did not know that it was inappropriate to administer medication that had been retrieved from the sharps bin. Oramorph is a type of oral morphine.

Read more about this atrociously dangerous incompetence at https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/nurse-devon-hospital-took-used-1320309