SHAPUNG:NURSE WHO KILLED BABY WITH POWERFUL DRUGS STRUCK OFF
A nurse who killed her baby with powerful drugs stolen from her patients was kicked out of the profession today (Fri).
Justinah Shapung, 32, planned to end her own life and give her baby boy ‘his last sleep’ in a New Year’s Day suicide bid.
She stole a batch of the high-strength painkiller oromorph, stolen from the nursing home where she worked and gave lethal doses to the child and herself, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.
Eleven month old Themba Bevin died of morphine poisoning at Shapung’s home in North Shields on January 1, 2010, but his mother survived and regained consciousness three days later.
Prosecutors accepted Shapung’s guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility after doctors said she was suffering from severe depression.
She was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act, 1983, after a hearing at Newcastle Crown Court gave her an indefinite hospital order in June last year.
The panel today (fri) ordered she be struck off the nursing register after a hearing in central London.
Panel chair Jim Spencer said: ‘This is a particularly sad and tragic case, which has impacted heavily on all concerned.
‘This registrant’s conviction is fundamentally incompatible with remaining on the register and confidence in the profession would be undermined if she was not struck off.
‘This is the only appropriate and proportionate sanction.’
Cassandra Scarborough, for the NMC, said the killing had taken place some time between 10pm on December 31 and 1pm the next day and had been discovered by Shapung’s partner, Aggrippa Mpofu.
‘This is an extremely sad case and a very unhappy and tragic incident,’ she said.
‘Police received a 999 call from neighbours, who had noticed that Ms Shapung’s partner had been trying to gain access for some time to the flat they lived in.
‘After about 30 minutes of knocking, the neighbour assisted him to break in using a screwdriver.
‘While the neighbour was waiting outside he heard the cries of the partner, shouting that his boy was dead.’
Shapung, who came to the UK from Lesotho in South Africa in 2005, was lying unconscious in her bed, but was still breathing, she added.
She was taken to hospital, where police kept a bedside vigil, and regained consciousness three days later.
‘She made a number of comments,’ said Miss Scarborough.
‘She said she had wanted to kill herself and give her baby his last sleep’.
Crime scene investigators later found two bottles of high-strength painkillers at Shapung’s flat.
‘They had been prescribed for two ladies at the nursing home where the registrant was employed in North Tyneside,’ said Miss Scarborough.
‘You may think that aggravates the offence for the purpose of these proceedings.’
Shapung was suffering from serious depression at the time of the killing and had a history of self-harm, the panel was told.
She was not represented at today’s hearing, but a document sent to the NMC by her doctors read: ‘Miss Shapung expects her name to be removed from the nursing register and has indicated that she does not
wish to contest this.’
ends
