Notice of cancellation
On March 22, 2016, the CRNBC Inquiry Committee approved a Consent Agreement cancelling the registration of
Jacqueline Orina. Ms. Orina is barred from working as a registered nurse in B.C. Ms. Orina has further agreed that she will not apply for reinstatement for a period of five years. The reasons for the outcome are outlined below.
Facts
CRNBC received a complaint from Ms. Orina’s employer following the termination of her employment on April 28, 2014. Pending the outcome of the investigation, Ms. Orina agreed to conditions limiting her ability to practise.
Ms. Orina was Director of Care at a long-term care facility. Ms. Orina became acquainted with F. in early 2013 when she began paying weekly visits to her sister, who lived at the care facility. F. was 86 years old at the time. Ms. Orina began to encourage the woman to become a long-term care resident at the facility, despite the fact F. did not require the full-time care provided by the facility. Ms. Orina began driving F. to and from appointments, and was seen handling her money.
On January 7, 2014, Ms. Orina used her position as the Director of Care to have F. admitted to the facility even though she knew F. did not want to go. Ms. Orina then completed a referral form with information she knew to be untrue, listing herself as the primary contact for F., providing misleading health information, listing the care facility as F.’s primary residence, and incorrectly stating F. had dementia, among other conditions.
On January 8, 2014, Ms. Orina recruited several employees of the care facility to begin emptying out F.’s apartment of her possessions. Most were discarded, but a coin collection was appropriated by Ms. Orina and taken to her own home. Ms. Orina arranged to have the care facility employees paid for emptying F.’s apartment out with funds drawn from F.’s trust account.
After a fall, F. was transferred to hospital where Ms. Orina frequently visited. During one of these visit, Ms. Orina had F. sign a letter that Ms. Orina had written on her behalf, terminating her lease for her apartment. F. did not understand that this is what the letter meant, and did not know that Ms. Orina had already arranged to have the apartment emptied and much of the contents discarded.
F. was transferred to a recovery facility in February, where Ms. Orina continued to visit her. Ms. Orina continued to use funds drawn from F.’s care account at Ms. Orina’s facility, which Ms. Orina had kept open contrary to facility policy, to pay taxi fares and incidentals for herself.
On March 5, Ms. Orina began proceedings to have herself appointed Power of Attorney (POA) for F., which gave her complete control over F.’s person and finances. Ms. Orina proceeded to obtain credit and debit cards in her own name for F.’s accounts, withdrawing cash and cancelling a $100,000 investment F. had with another firm. While attempting to obtain long-term care for F., Ms. Orina was untruthful with health authority placement staff by telling them F. did not want to be in the same care facility as her sister J. Ms. Orina said this because she knew that F. could not be assigned to her facility while Ms. Orina was both the DOC of the facility and F.’s POA.
On March 28, 2014 Ms. Orina’s behaviour was identified and brought to the attention of her supervisor. She spoke with Ms. Orina on March 31. Ms. Orina acknowledged she had POA over F. but stated that she hadn’t realized it was a conflict of interest and contrary to the facility’s policies. She offered to resign as POA immediately. Her supervisor also discovered that day that Ms. Orina had hired staff from the facility to empty F.’s apartment. On April 10, 2014, Ms. Orina’s supervisor hired workplace investigators.
On April 11 or 12, 2014, it was ascertained that Ms. Orina had taken no steps to revoke the POA or to cancel her credit or debit card. (These steps were completed at this time.) Ms. Orina’s appropriation of F.’s coin collection was also discovered. Investigation further revealed Ms. Orina had pressured a colleague to secretly return the coin collection to the facility and lie to the investigator. Following the conclusion of the investigation, the facility decided to terminate Ms. Orina’s employment and submitted an official complaint to CRNBC.
Outcome
On March 21, 2016, the CRNBC Inquiry Committee approved a Consent Agreement in which Ms. Orina acknowledged the facts as true and correct and agreed to cancellation of her practising registration. She is precluded from reapplying for practising registration for at least five years.
If she applies for practicing registration at that later date, Ms. Orina will be required to meet the standard for good character and all other registration requirements, as determined by the CRNBC Registration Committee. Should this occur, Ms. Orina will be subject to limits, including (but not limited to) the following: she will not act as POA, she will not work independently or in any capacity with control of client or employer finances, and she will consent to CRNBC disclosing the entire contents of its investigation to any prospective employer.
The cancellation will remain permanently on the CRNBC public register. The information outlined above is published in accordance with section 39.3 of the
Health Professions Act and at the direction of the CRNBC Inquiry Committee, which further directed that the public notice include the complete contents of the Consent Agreement (except information identifying third parties).
Consent agreement
To request a redacted copy of the consent agreement please email
communications@bccnm.ca.