{"id":305250,"date":"2026-01-27T00:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T00:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/305250\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T00:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T00:26:17","slug":"glamorous-aged-care-nurse-suspended-for-sleeping-on-the-job-while-in-charge-learns-her-fate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/305250\/","title":{"rendered":"Glamorous aged care nurse suspended for sleeping on the job while in charge learns her fate"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young nurse has had her registration cancelled and struck off the register after ‘improper conduct’ during night shifts at a nursing home, including falling asleep on the job up to six times.<\/p>\n

Chimzuruoke Okembunachi, 25, started work as a registered nurse at Hardi Aged Care (HAC) in Guildford in western Sydney<\/a> in February 2024.<\/p>\n

But after a month on the job, she was suspended and resigned from her position.<\/p>\n

The NSW<\/a>\u00a0Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Tuesday found Ms\u00a0Okembunachi guilty of professional misconduct and ordered the cancellation of her nurse registration.<\/p>\n

The tribunal panel heard that Ms Okembunachi had been rostered for night shifts from 13 to 27 March 2024.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

On each shift, the panel noted that Ms Okembunachi was the only registered nurse supervising three or four assistants-in-nursing (AIN) and 100 elderly residents.<\/p>\n

But, on six of these nights, she failed to discharge her duties and responsibilities as she slept while on duty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tribunal heard that on three occasions, the nurse failed to give a patient her regular dose of morphine because she was asleep.<\/p>\n

\"Chimzuruoke <\/p>\n

Chimzuruoke Okembunachi (pictured) has had her registration as a nurse cancelled\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"She <\/p>\n

She was found guilty of\u00a0professional misconduct by a tribunal after sleeping during night shifts at Hardi Aged Care (HAC) in March 2024<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The tribunal heard Ms Okembunachi failed to carry out her duties on six nights as she was asleep, often in the nurses’ station<\/p>\n

During her fifth night shift from March 21 to 22, Ms Okembunachi was awoken by an AIN who turned on the light in the nurses’ station, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

But, a minute later, the nurse turned the light back off.<\/p>\n

The tribunal also heard that the nurse told an AIN to give a male patient Panadol on March 15 to help get rid of his foot pain, despite the assistant not being authorised to administer the medication.<\/p>\n

The assistant reportedly asked Ms Okembunachi: ‘Are you sure? We are not allowed to provide medication directly.’<\/p>\n

The nurse’s reply, the tribunal noted, was ‘It’s okay sister, just give it to him.’<\/p>\n

Ms\u00a0Okembunachi was then reported to her bosses by two nurses on March 27, and was informed via email the next day that her employment had been suspended and requested a meeting.<\/p>\n

Twenty minutes after she received the email, Ms Okembunachi tendered her resignation and declined to attend\u00a0 the meeting.<\/p>\n

After a complaint to the\u00a0Health Care Complaints Commission, which brought the tribunal case against the nurse, her nursing registration was suspended.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Nigerian-born nurse was working at the aged care facility while studying medicine<\/p>\n

\"Ms <\/p>\n

Ms Okembunachi told the tribunal she accepted it was her responsibility to give medication to residents while working the night shifts<\/p>\n

Born in Nigeria, Ms Okembunachi moved to Australia in 2018 and graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing Science at University of the Sunshine Coast in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She then embarked on a graduate degree in medicine at Western Sydney University, (WSU) which she balanced with her work at HAC while suffering from migraines.<\/p>\n

During her second degree, Ms Okembunachi had to take a leave of absence after failing the mid-year anatomy exam. She then returned to her studies in 2024.<\/p>\n

Early that year, the tribunal heard that her younger sister required an expensive surgery for a scoliosis condition, which cost their father about $60,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘These events caused me significant stress and influenced my decision to cease agency work in favour of more permanent employment,’\u00a0Ms Okembunachi told the tribunal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘In hindsight, I should have not applied for, or accepted, the position at Hardi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I should have recognised that I had a lot of stressors going on in my life, family, health and school, and so working night shifts during the week was putting patients’ safety at risk.’<\/p>\n

Ms Okembunachi also told the tribunal that she accepted it was her responsibility to give medication to residents.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The tribunal panel said Ms Okembunachi’s actions ‘had the potential to endanger the lives of patients under her care’<\/p>\n

‘When I slept on night shift, I failed in supervising those staff members and the residents,’ she told the hearing.<\/p>\n

She has not worked as a nurse since her suspension but is still studying for a medicine degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her father has been supporting her financially and, since February 2025, she has also been receiving a Centrelink Student Allowance, the tribunal noted.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Ms Okembunachi said she hoped to return to nursing and, if allowed to keep working, would not do night shifts while studying at university.<\/p>\n

However, the tribunal panel made an order to cancel\u00a0Ms Okembunachi’s nursing registration on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

‘The acts of the practitioner had the potential to endanger the lives of patients under her care,’ the findings read.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘In our view, any order short of deregistration would be an inadequate response to the seriousness of the practitioner\u2019s misconduct.’<\/p>\n

But the panel did note that Ms Okembunachi had been ‘clearly remorseful and contrite… and conspicuously honest in her evidence’.<\/p>\n

She cannot apply for review of the cancellation order for at least nine months.<\/p>\n

Daily Mail has contacted\u00a0Ms Okembunachi for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young nurse has had her registration cancelled and struck off the register after ‘improper conduct’ during night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[118,18,135,475,474,19,17,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-305250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115964227616411193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}