adminNur- sing Home in Smethwick, Birming- ham.
The council, which suspended her for 12 months in a ruling issued yesterday, was told during the hearing that some of the patients were left spluttering on their medication and care assistants had to stop them choking.
Residents at the home suffered from a range of conditions, including cancer, Parkinson’s disease and motor neurone disease.
The chair of the council’s panel hearing the case, Sheila Hewitt, said: “On many occasions, sometimes with vulnerable patients Ms Mittal administered medication by throwing it with her hand into the mouths of patients, saying that she was doing so because of her fear of germs from the patients.”
She added: “Ms Mittal would ask residents to open their mouths, standing at a distance of two-and-a-half to three feet away from them, and when they did this, she would throw the medication into their mouths.”
She said the panel was satisfied that the witnesses had given reliable and truthful accounts of what they saw.
Mittal now denies the allegations, but the panel noted that she did not do so during the internal disciplinary hearing in 2007.
The NMC was also told that Mittal set up a makeshift bed behind reception, and sometimes slept for more than half of her 10-hour night shift.
She was once caught sleeping on the job when manager Gillian Williams visited the home at 4am. — Press Trust of India.
Online Reporter