A nurse at a psychiatric hospital for prisoners has been cautioned and had conditions imposed on her registration after a confidential complaint was made about some of her Facebook posts.
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Gloria Swetnam works at the Wilfred Lopes Centre at Risdon Vale and was the subject of a notification lodged with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency on January 4, 2018.
Concerns were raised about two public posts she had made on Facebook in December 2017, which AHPRA ultimately concluded had breached the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia's code of conduct and social media policy.
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In the first post, made on December 18, 2017, Ms Swetnam alluded to having been labelled a bully. "I have never felt so good ... since I was able to express the feelings of myself and ... most of my colleagues," she wrote. "Little Napoleon and your Josephine I will gladly be your Waterloo. The truth will come out and you will rue the day you lied about me. Karma is real and I have patience."
Thirteen days later, Ms Swetnam posted a personality test she'd taken on Facebook - with the result "1001% a--hole" - and included a comment: "I prefer vindictive b----. Cross me and your days are numbered. One way or another I'm gonna get ya! I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya!"
Ms Swetnam responded to AHPRA after learning of the notification, denying that she was a bully and suggesting she knew who made the complaint, pointing the finger at a male co-worker.
"My posts on Facebook had nothing to do with him," she told AHPRA. "He has tried every conceivable way to discredit me."
The board was originally just going to caution Ms Swetnam for conduct which "may be considered to undermine the good standard of the nursing profession", but opted to sanction her further after forming the view from its subsequent correspondence with her that she had displayed a "significant deficit of insight".
My posts on Facebook had nothing to do with him. He has tried every conceivable way to discredit me.
- Gloria Swetnam, referring to a Wilfred Lopes colleague
Ms Swetnam later wrote to the regulator saying the actions it was proposing would have "significant consequences on my professional reputation and career". She said she had posted the personality test "in a jovial manner", that the investigation had caused her "a great deal of distress" and that she held concerns about the process.
On August 31, 2018, AHPRA notified Ms Swetnam that she would have conditions imposed on her nursing registration, requiring her to undertake additional education regarding the use of social media and communication in the workplace.
Ms Swetnam referred the decision to the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal. The tribunal's deputy chairperson Lucinda Wilkins said the nurse's evidence, given before a hearing in 2019, was "in the vast majority, delivered in dismissive tones, at times bordering on the contemptuous".
The tribunal delivered its decision in December last year, upholding the board's determination to put conditions on Ms Swetnam's registration, saying it was "appropriate and warranted".
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