A Peterborough-area nurse who admitted to having sex with an 80-year-old patient with dementia while working for him as a personal support worker has had her nursing certificate revoked.
Cathryn Marie Dulmage, a registered practical nurse, was fired by her employer Nightingale Nursing Registry in January 2017 after the man’s family reviewed security camera footage that showed the two embracing and kissing during an unscheduled visit, and the man telling her that he loved her.
Questioned by her agency the day after that encounter, Dulmage admitted to being intimate with the patient, including sexual intercourse and oral sex, and said she was also in love with the man, according to a decision of the disciplinary committee of the College of Nurses of Ontario.
The misconduct amounts to “sexual abuse” of the patient, and for that, Dulmage, who got her nursing diploma in 1991, can no longer practice as a nurse, a penalty that is in line with previous cases and “in the public interest,” reads the five-member panel’s decision, signed by committee chairperson Tanya Dion.
The decision, which came after a May 5, 2021, hearing, was passed to the Star by a Sheridan College journalism student who first discovered it in a legal database. The decision has also been published in the college of nurses’ monthly magazine, the Standard.
A publication ban on the identity of the victim has been imposed. The college refused a Star request for the man’s name for the purpose of contacting family for this story.
The man died sometime after the encounters with Dulmage and before the hearing.
Ontario Provincial Police investigated the case and it was “determined there were no grounds for criminal charges,” said spokesperson Bill Dickson, who directed any further questions back to the college.
Dulmage, though her lawyer Jeremy Richler, said she was “going to respectfully decline to make a comment at this time.”
Dulmage began working for Nightingale as a personal support worker in May 2015, according to the disciplinary decision. The Star left a message with Nightingale’s human resources department in mid-December seeking comment on the case but has not received a response.
In January 2017, Dulmage, then registered with the college in the “non-practising class,” started working for the patient, who lived alone in his Peterborough-area home. Family had installed cameras for safety reasons.
On her first shift, Dulmage “charted that he was ‘very pleasant’” and that day the man asked the agency for her to come “a few times a week,” according to the hearing decision, which includes an agreed statement of facts.
On Jan. 20, 2017, Dulmage arrived with coffee in an unscheduled visit and video shows her going upstairs for half an hour. During that time, Dulmage admitted to hugging, kissing and having sex with the patient.
Two days later, on another unscheduled visit, the security video captured the two embracing, kissing, and the man telling Dulmage he loves her. Family took the footage to Nightingale.
Confronted the next day by her employer, Dulmage admitted they had also had sex that day.
Dulmage also stated “that she and the Patient had engaged in ‘touching and kissing’ and that they were ‘in love.’”
That was the last of their interactions.
Dulmage pleaded guilty to three counts of professional misconduct, and in doing so admitted to violating therapeutic nurse-client relationship standards that require setting “appropriate boundaries.”
“It is never acceptable for a nurse to enter into a romantic or personal relationship while actively involved in providing care to a patient,” reads the decision.
“Rather, patients deserve access to health care free from the risk of exploitation and mental, emotional and/or physical harm. There is no place for patient abuse in any practice setting, under any circumstance.”
If Dulmage were to testify, she “would testify that she deeply regrets her conduct and that she has received counselling from her pastor and a psychologist,” reads the decision.
The disciplinary panel found that while Dulmage was not working as a nurse at the time of the incidents, she was “still required to adhere to her professional obligations.”
The facts that the patient was “an elderly man with dementia” and “vulnerable” were seen as aggravating factors in arriving at the penalty, while Dulmage’s co-operation through the entire disciplinary process was taken as a mitigating factor.
Due to the seriousness of the admitted sexual abuse, Dulmage’s certificate of registration as a registered practical nurse has been revoked.
ShowMeTheTrees on December 26th, 2021 at 00:28 UTC »
Seems to me with all the talk of "love", her next step was convincing him to change his will to leave it all to her.
srslyfulminant on December 25th, 2021 at 23:24 UTC »
Good movie alert : The world according to Garp. Similar theme
heavy_deez on December 25th, 2021 at 19:45 UTC »
Years ago I worked in the kitchen at a nursing home, and during my orientation it was specifically mentioned that I was allowed to have consensual sex with the residents. I'm guessing the difference here is the dementia.
(Oh, and to be clear: I never partook in the benefits of that policy, although there was one old woman who I would occasionally go to her room after work for a couple of drinks, but it never went any further than that)