Psychiatric nurse suspended, fined

A Christchurch psychiatric nurse has been suspended and fined after he was found guilty of assaulting a patient.

Ian Charles Dieudonne was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in July.

The tribunal was told that in December 2007 Dieudonne used his fist to push an upset psychiatric patient in the chest.

The patient then fell to the ground and Dieudonne left him lying there for 40 to 45 minutes.

Dieudonne admitted the push, but said the patient was only left on the floor for 10 to 15 minutes and his action was in self-defence.

He told the tribunal he had not punched the patient, but had pushed him in the chest to put distance between them.

Dieudonne said he could tell by the way the patient fell, he had not seriously injured himself.

He then left so the man could calm down, Dieudonne told the tribunal.

He said he felt "genuinely frightened" because of the patient's threatening and aggressive stance and despite the fact he was elderly, seemed to have "super-human strength".

In its decision released today, the tribunal found the patient would have been on the floor for 30 minutes.

"This was too long a period of time for an elderly resident to remain on the floor even allowing for the fact that he was resistant to being lifted off the floor by (Dieudonne)."

The tribunal found that Dieudonne believed he was in imminent danger "but objectively as a reasonable nurse he should have acted in another way that did not involve a push to (the patient)".

The tribunal suspended Dieudonne from practising for eight weeks.

He was also ordered to attend nursing courses on how to deal with challenging situations and be assessed after the courses were completed.

Dieudonne was fined $500 and was ordered to pay 25 percent of costs of the prosecution.