Nurses Disciplined For Drug Abuse, Care Lapses, Falling Asleep At Work

Posted By: Ct Health I Team July 21, 2020

By Bonnie Phillips

Over the past several months, the state Board of Examiners for Nursing has disciplined the following nurses for improper patient care, drug abuse and falsifying license paperwork, among other violations.

• The registered nurse (RN) license of Sashni C. Popp of Norwalk was recently reprimanded and placed on probation for one year for failing to properly care for a patient’s wound and for not meeting the standard of care for wound treatment, according to her signed consent order.

• The Connecticut RN license of Amy Slepica, of Lakeville, Minn., was revoked because she made false statements on her application for a CT nursing license in December 2017 and again on her license renewal in November 2018. Slepica, whose Minnesota RN license was disciplined in 2017 and 2018 for failure to provide adequate patient care and to maintain adequate patient records, indicated on her CT applications that her RN license had not been the subject of disciplinary action in any other state.

• The RN license of Nicolette Strizzi of Windsor has been suspended indefinitely while the board investigates allegations of substance against her, according to her signed interim consent order.

• The Connecticut RN license of Carissa Kelly of Sharon, Mass., was reprimanded after her Massachusetts license was disciplined in September 2019 for ordering medical supplies for “hundreds of patients” without examining them between May 2017 and May 2018, according to her signed consent order.

• The board handed down a reprimand and a one-year probation to Jill Cavanaugh of Bristol after she fell asleep while working an overnight shift caring for a pediatric patient who required ventilator and tracheostomy care on Feb. 22, 2018, according to her consent order signed recently. Cavanaugh, a registered nurse, failed to take her prescribed medication for a sleep disorder the night she fell asleep, must also seek treatment with a pulmonologist and provide quarterly reports to prove she did so, and avoid solo practice for the period of her probation.

• William Meister of North Haven voluntarily surrendered his RN license in July after his license was placed on four years’ probation for diverting propofol for his personal use while working at Middlesex Hospital, and for using propofol and alcohol to excess in 2018.

• The board issued a six-month probation and a reprimand to Tabitha Banker of Jewett City. Banker, an LPN, was cited for not taking the vital signs of multiple patients at Generations Family Health Center Inc., Putnam, but indicating in patients’ charts that she did so in March 2018, according to her consent order. Banker was also ordered to take coursework in documentation standards.

• The LPN license of Dianne Mealy of West Suffield was reprimanded and placed on probation for six months after she failed to start life-sustaining treatment and CPR on a patient at Parkway Pavilion Rehabilitation Center in Enfield on March 10, 2019. According to the consent order, Mealy did not call a “code blue” on the patient, who had a physician’s order and a care plan that requested life-sustaining treatment, did not start CPR and did not call 911 once she realized the patient had no pulse. Under the terms of her probation Mealy must also complete coursework in advanced directives and critical thinking.

• The LPN license of Daisy Acosta of Waterbury was reprimanded and placed on probation for one year for a number of violations. According to her consent agreement, Acosta, who worked for All About You Home Care Services in Naugatuck, improperly accepted money from the parents of a patient she was caring for; failed to accurately document the patient’s medical records; signed documents saying she visited and medicated the patient on a day when the patient was not at home; and failed to notify her supervisor that the patient had been diagnosed with pneumonia and had been prescribed antibiotics. Acosta was also ordered to take coursework in ethics and boundaries.

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