Nurse wasn’t competent, hearing told

A HOSPITAL nurse was so incompetent her boss had to supervise her every move, a London hearing has been told.

Hanadi Hamza gave a baby a double dose of medication and left another in a dangerous position in an incubator at the Royal Oldham Hospital.

She took the oxygen mask from another baby with severe breathing difficulties - then abandoned th child to find help, rather than use an emergency buzzer.

Lynn Bowe, a senior nurse on the ward, described her frustration over Hamza to the Nursing and Midwifery Council: “She was being shown again and again and again, the same things, it was repetitive, day in, day out.”

She said Hamza was always in a rush to get things done - even when told not to work unsupervised.

Ms Bowes added: “She wasn’t a competent practitioner by any means.”

The panel heard that some staff on the ward refused to work with Hamza because they worried her incompetence might reflect on them.

Ms Bowe said: “It was her unpredictability: you just didn’t know what she was going to do next.

“It was trying to get it through to her that just because she thinks she knows a thing doesn’t mean she does, and she’s got to safeguard herself.”

Before she was suspended, Hamza was fully supervised: “I could not, hand on heart, have slept at night if that was not the case,” said Ms Bowe.

Hamza is also accused of entering a cordoned-off area occupied by patients infected with the MRSA superbug. She faces a other charges

If proven, Hamza faces a ban or being struck off the medical register.

The hearing continues.