A Sydney nurse whose registration was cancelled after she was found to have slept during night shifts at an aged care facility told a tribunal that her conduct was a failure of leadership and duty of care, describing the proceedings as a “huge lesson”.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal this week ordered the cancellation of the nursing registration of Chimzuruoke Okembunachi, 25, following findings of professional misconduct linked to incidents at Hardi Aged Care in Guildford in March 2024.
Ms Okembunachi told the hearing that she accepted responsibility for her actions while rostered as the only registered nurse supervising three to four assistants-in-nursing and about 100 residents during night shifts.
“When I slept on night shift, I failed in supervising those staff members and the residents,” she said.

She acknowledged that patients missed prescribed medication while she was asleep and said she understood the impact of her actions on junior staff.
“I failed in my leadership role on those night shifts and in my duty of care to the residents. I was also being paid to work, not sleep,” she told the tribunal.
Ms Okembunachi said she had been managing multiple pressures at the time, including studying medicine at Western Sydney University, suffering from migraines and family financial strain following her sister’s surgery.

“In hindsight, I should have not applied for, or accepted, the position at Hardi,” she said.
“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.”
She also addressed an incident in which she instructed an assistant-in-nursing to administer Panadol to a resident, despite the assistant not being authorised to do so.

Ms Okembunachi told the tribunal she accepted it was her responsibility to give medication to residents.
“My conduct was terrible,” she said. “It is conduct I will never engage in ever again.”
The nurse resigned from her role shortly after being notified of her suspension in March 2024 and has not worked as a nurse since.

She told the tribunal she hoped to return to nursing in the future and would not work night shifts while studying if permitted.
In its decision, the tribunal said the conduct “had the potential to endanger the lives of patients under her care”, adding that deregistration was the appropriate response.

However, the panel noted that Ms Okembunachi was “clearly remorseful and contrite” and “conspicuously honest in her evidence”.
She is barred from applying for a review of the cancellation order for at least nine months.