BC nurse accused of selling drugs to inmates via wire transfers

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A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has granted the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives access to a nurse’s financial records to investigate allegations that she sold medications from her employer’s supply to prisoners and was paid through wire transfers.

The university, which is responsible for disciplining nurses, said it asked the nurse to provide financial records after receiving information from two human sources that the nurse was selling drugs at her workplace, according to the reasons for the judge’s ruling. .

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The nurse refused to disclose her telephone money transfer records or her financial records from all the banks she dealt with at the time of the allegations, he said.

The judge, who is still a member of the bar authorized to work as a nurse but who resigned in 2021, withheld his name, his real initials and his inheritance because the accusations are not proven, according to the ruling.

The university searched for records between Dec. 31, 2020, and Dec. 21, 2021, according to Judge Maria Morellato’s ruling published online this week.

He said B.C.’s Health Professions and Occupations Act allows the university’s investigative committee investigating the allegations to ask the court for an order authorizing the “production of any record, property, asset or thing and inspecting or analyzing it.” “.

The nurse opposes the order based on arguments from his lawyer about the “scope of the requested orders, the inadmissibility of hearsay evidence, the insufficiency of the evidence supporting the request and the absence of reasonable grounds,” Morellato wrote.

“Although they are ably argued, I do not find them compelling in the context of this particular application,” he said.

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“I am satisfied that the evidentiary record before me satisfies the (health profession) law’s test that there is a reasonable belief that additional evidence can be found in the defendant’s banking and telephone records relating to the complaint,” he wrote, in italics. the word “can.”

The case dates back to 2021, the judge wrote, when the nurse worked at a British Columbia health care facility, who was not named. In her role, the nurse distributed medications to patients, the judge said.

The nurse was informed of the investigation at the end of 2021 and four days later, on December 20, 2021, he resigned.

The university received a complaint letter from someone who worked for the same employer that contained serious allegations, including discrepancies about how the nurse handled medications, that she allegedly “trafficked medications (possibly including Suboxone) from the employer’s stock and was receiving I pay for this via email.” -transfer” and that a “contraband cell phone” called a “boss beater” had been found, supposedly used to send electronic transfers, according to the ruling.

In March 2022, the university’s investigative committee asked the university to seek bank receipts from all banks the nurse used in 2021, but the nurse refused to provide them and “requested more details about the allegations.”

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The university was told that the employee who complained had been rated “trustworthy” on an internal rating scale, as was the employee who handed over the nurse’s cell phone, the judge wrote. None of the employees were named.

The SIM card identifying the owner of the “beater boss’s” mobile phone had been removed before being handed over to the employer, but the nurse’s phone number was recovered from the beater’s phone’s contact list, the judge wrote.

In October 2022, the university requested the nurse’s 2021 phone records and he refused to provide them.

Morellato said in accepting the university’s investigative committee’s records request: “I should note that, aside from the main allegation of selling prescription drugs to inmates and receiving electronic bank transfers, the fact that the defendant’s telephone number provided his employer was recovered from a contraband cell phone is a very serious matter that requires further investigation and disclosure of documents.”

The names of the employees who made the complaint and handed over the mobile phone were not revealed to the court and Morellato said: “I accept that the employer is unable to provide further information at this time due to its internal policies and procedures, particularly its concerns about security. potential of the human sources of the information presented to me.”

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Phone messages left with attorneys for both parties and the university were not returned.

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