According to GGZ Drenthe, a nurse entered into a relationship with a vulnerable former patient. The woman testified for the disciplinary court in Zwolle on Friday that he started a sexual relationship with her fairly soon after termination of the admission to the closed department.
A caregiver is not even legally allowed to enter into a relationship with a patient or a former patient, said lawyer Marjon Groenhof-hunter on behalf of GGZ Drenthe. The nurse, no longer working for GGZ Drenthe, had a secret sexual relationship between 2021 and 2023 just after the patient left the closed department to her house in Assen.
The woman came out with it when she didn’t pull it anymore. The nurse had talked to her to keep it secret all this time. “You can make or break me,” he would have told her. “If you open your mouth I will lose everything: my house, my job,” the former patient quoted to the disciplinary court.
The nurse was on her phone as ‘Pieter’ between her contacts to keep it so secret. The contact in the department at GGZ Drenthe became personal when the nurse asked photos of her cats. They exchanged telephone numbers. And he said she was “the most beautiful woman in the department,” the woman testified in the courtroom.
Already a week after she left the closed department at GGZ Drenthe, he came to her. And with the third visit even though it came to sex. Only after the relationship was broken after two years did she dare to tell her therapist first. The mental healthcare institution did research and also asked the nurse to be heard. He kept it in a relationship of a year, said it had stayed with hugging and rejected a sexual relationship. GGZ Drenthe did not consult the report as proof to the disciplinary court. All app contacts between the nurse and the former patient have also been erased.
Healthcare provider ‘Pieter’, who has 30 years of experience, did not appear on the session on Friday. The man is accused of not having kept a professional distance. “Why should we believe that there was no sex?” The lawyer wondered. The man would have given the woman a vibrator as a gift. “A sexual relationship so shortly after the treatment relationship is ‘not done’. It is not allowed, it is never allowed,” the counselor said. GGZ Drenthe believes that the nurse does not see the seriousness of the situation. He also takes no responsibility for his actions.
GGZ Drenthe therefore asks the disciplinary court to impose a measure. The measures that the disciplinary court can impose from a warning to the appeal of a healthcare provider. The Regional Disciplinary Court expects to rule on 24 October at the latest.