NHS nurse struck off after trying to get cancer patient to buy cannabis oil

A nurse has been struck off after trying to sell cannabis oil to a cancer patient.

Eliska Neuzilova had treated a female patient while working at the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham in June 2018.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) said she “failed to maintain professional boundaries” with patients and gave “unsolicited medical advice” while being involved with a company that sold CBD.

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of more than 100 active ingredients in cannabis. CBD, unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is non-psychoactive and products containing it are legal in the UK.

Ms Neuzilova, who did not attend an NMC committee misconduct tribunal hearing, had been working as an agency nurse at the QMC’s neuro-spinal post-operative unit at the time she met the patient, who has since died.

The patient’s family contacted Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust, claiming the nurse “tried to convince [the patient] A to stop eating sugar and to take cannabis oil to cure her cancer”.

She also posted a CBD oil leaflet through the patient’s letterbox, which the panel found “amounted to a misuse of patient information”.

The tribunal heard Ms Neuzilova had admitted this by saying: “I knew her address from her records, so I decided to drop a leaflet through her door.”

Ms Neuzilova said she had not wanted to profit from promoting the cannabis oil, but the NMC committee “found it implausible [that she] would go out of her way to deliver a leaflet to [the patient] which advertised products her company sold for purely altruistic reasons”.

The NMC said: “The panel was cognisant that cannabis oil is not a gold-standard medical treatment in the patient’s circumstances.

“Regardless of Miss Neuzilova’s personal beliefs, it was satisfied that a health care professional giving advice on supplements or treatments that are not supported by medical evidence is inappropriate and potentially dangerous.

“This therefore represents a serious departure from professional standards.

“Further, the panel determined that the patient was highly vulnerable, and Miss Neuzilova was in a position of trust.

“Miss Neuzilova’s use of the patient’s address, which she admits having obtained in the course of her duties as a registered nurse, in order to target her for financial gain, was an abuse of that trust.”

She was also accused of trying to convince the patient that the CBD oil would cure cancer, but she was cleared of this allegation after the tribunal heard there was a lack of evidence because the patient had passed away.

Ms Neuzilova had also failed to record information properly on another patient’s chart and did not make sure her spinal fluid drain was working. The panel found that this left the patient needing urgent medical care.