A nurse who told a 73-year-old heart patient to mop up his own urine with a mop and bucket has been allowed to continue practising after she told a hearing that she was suffering from personal problems at the time.

The Daily Mail reports that 38-year-old Isabella Michaels was suspended after concerned colleagues at Barts Hospital in London reported the incident.  Michaels – who qualified as a nurse in 2004 – admitted that she had made the comment to the unnamed patient, but said that she had just split up with her partner at the time and was ‘suffering from personal problems’.

The man – known only as Patient A – told the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) he was 'taken aback and shocked' at the request that he clear up his own urine. He added that at first he thought the nurse was ‘having a laugh’ – but realised she was being serious when he saw the expression on her face.

The patient had undergone cardiac surgery in April 2007 and had developed incontinence as a reaction to antibiotics he had been prescribed after the operation. Staff had moved him into an isolation room on a high-dependency unit, as they thought he might have a stomach bug and he was only able to use a commode.

He told the hearing he had called out for help and pressed the buzzer when he wanted to use the commode – but no one came to help and he could not reach the commode in time. Isabella Michaels was the first member of staff he saw and he had not seen her before, he told the NMC.

Patient A said he tried to move the mop backwards and forwards to clean the floor but had only recently had surgery and was unable to. Michaels then took the mop and cleaned the floor herself, he said. He told the panel the ward sister later told him Michaels had been reported over the incident.

Michaels was suspended and then later resigned and has not worked as a nurse since. The NMC heard that she had undergone counselling and was now working as a volunteer with head injury patients, having suffered from a brain tumour herself in 2006.

The NMC concluded that, although her actions amounted to misconduct, they accepted that Michaels was going through a difficult period of her life at the time of the incident and her fitness to practise was not impaired. At the hearing she apologised for the incident and she is now free to return to nursing.

'I was just offloading,' she told the panel. 'He was just a gentleman who came in for a bypass – he didn't come in to have a nurse upset him. I know [cleaning up] is part of my duty. I was angry and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.'

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