Failure To Pass Medications: Nurse Convicted Of A Crime.

Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

April 1997

   A nurse’s willful failure to administer required medications to the nurse’s patients in a nursing home is a violation of the law for which a criminal conviction is an appropriate sanction, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, has ruled. The court record did not indicate what sentence was imposed on the nurse in this particular case.

   Willful failure to administer medications means the nurse has acted knowingly and deliberately in not administering required medications to patients. A negligent, unintended oversight is not considered willful for purposes of the court being able to convict a nurse of a crime and impose criminal sanctions. People vs. Spence, 648 N.Y.S. 2d 636 (N.Y. App., 1996).