From the Otago Daily Times
A Northland nurse has lost her bid to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) to get her job back after she failed to have an emergency crash kit on site while giving school students HPV vaccines.
Natalie Lewers was a senior public health nurse employed by the Northland District Health Board (NDHB) to carry out immunisation programmes for school students in the Whangarei and Kaipara area.
The ERA was told that on August 24, 2010 a team of nurses, led by Ms Lewers, were administrating HPV vaccines – a vaccine which prevents infection associated with cervical cancer and genital warts – at a Whangarei high school.
When they set the gear up at the school it was discovered a crash kit, containing emergency equipment for the response to any anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine, was not there.
While a nurse left to get the kit, Ms Lewers decided to carry on administering the vaccines without the crash kit on site.
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