BLACKHEATH: Nurse struck off for forcing patient to eat excrement

Abraham Olaniyan was banned from practising as a nurse at a hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) this morning.

Yesterday, the NMC found allegations that the 45-year-old had threatened to make a patient eat his own faeces and forced him to eat it were proven.

The incident took place at the Cygnet Wing secure psychiatric unit in Blackheath on July 16, 2004.

Olaniyan had said to the patient “eat your crap” after he defecated in the corridor at the unit, the NMC heard.

He then took the patient, known as Patient A, into a shower room and forced excrement into his mouth, the NMC panel was told.

Explaining the decision to strike Olaniyan off the nursing register, chairman of the NMC hearing Stephen Barker said the incident was “serious”.

Mr Barker said: “It was a deliberate and unprovoked assault on a patient, and the registrant has expressed no remorse.”

Olaniyan, who had been registered as a nurse since 1997, had denied the accusations.

The incident was not witnessed by anybody else.

When Patient A gave evidence to the hearing in August last year he said he could not remember the incident clearly nor say who was responsible for the attack.

Two of Olaniyan's colleagues, Enock Mhindurwa and Frederick Matenga, reported the incident.

However, Olaniyan claimed it was Mr Mhindurwa who committed the offences against Patient A.

Olaniyan said Mr Mhindurwa and Mr Matenga conspired to frame him for the offences because of previous disagreements between him and them.

Mr Barker said: "The registrant has suggested there has been a conspiracy against him by Mr Matenga and Mr Mhindurwa, and that it was Mr Mhindurwa himself who actually put the faeces into Patient A’s mouth.

"The panel rejects the suggestion of a conspiracy."

Father-of-two Olaniyan, who lived in Brockley at the time of the incident but now lives in Manchester, will not be allowed to apply to be restored to the nursing register for five years.