A NEWLY qualified nurse, who sparked a hospital emergency after she gave a diabetic patient ten times the prescribed dose of insulin, was struck off this week.
Marie Needham (46) made the blunder while banned from administering drugs without supervision.
The order was made after prescription blunders with four other patients, the Nursing and Midwifery Council in London heard on Monday.
Needham, of Cuffs Lane, Tisbury, made the catalogue of mistakes at Salisbury District Hospital within months of qualifying as a nurse.
The emergency was sparked after she gave insulin to a patient following an operation.
Instead of giving the patient three millilitres of the drug an hour, Needham set up the pump to dispense 30 millilitres an hour.
She had also given another patient double the prescribed dose of the painkiller Pethidine on two occasions.
And she ignored orders to check a diabetic patient's blood-sugar level during a night shift.
Needham began work on Salisbury Ward in May 1998, after qualifying as a nurse at Bournemouth University.
The serious insulin mistake came on January 27 2000.
Needham was suspended from duty after the error and she resigned in March 2000.
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