Former care home nurse fined $8,000 for ‘disturbing in the extreme’ 2025 incident

A former nurse has been fined $8,000 and is facing numerous restrictions after making a mistake “no registered nurse should have made” by inserting 10 centimetres of gauze into a patient’s anus instead of dressing a nearby wound.

Kamaljeet Kaur Dherdi entered a guilty plea to professional misconduct as part of an inquiry committee panel of the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba on June 2.

The incident took place on March 6, 2025 at the Holy Family Care Home on Aberdeen Avenue.

The inquiry panel’s decision, posted online Thursday, called Dherdi’s behaviour “disturbing in the extreme.”

According to the decision, Dherdi went into the resident’s room to clean a wound, something the nurse had done twice before. The resident was described as “cognitively intact, alert and able to make their own independent decisions about their care,” but not mobile, uses a wheelchair and is “unable to provide their own personal care.”

The nurse used “significant force” to pack the patient’s anus with gauze, and then bandaged it. The wound that needed care was left uncovered, at risk of infection.

The situation was discovered hours later when the patient asked a health-care aide to check if they’d had a bowel movement; the aide saw the open wound and bandaged anus. The bandage and gauze were removed and the wound was properly dressed.

The panel cited numerous aggravating factors, including the fact the wound was large and “easily distinguishable” from the patient’s anus, the nurse ignored the resident’s clear concerns at the time about how they were feeling once their anus was (improperly) packed” and the fact they initially denied responsibility, suggesting, “other provider must have completed the dressing change.”

Dherdi’s lawyer, Trevor Ray, submitted the nurse recognized and apologized for the “significant mistake” and that they “had mistaken an anus with muscle tone for a wound on the buttocks.”

Ray said Dherdi initially denied the misconduct when questioned because they were in a state of “disbelief that they would have done this and that they had no independent recollection of the event.” However, the reasoning was rejected by the committee.

“To be clear, the Panel rejects in its entirety any suggestion that the Registrant’s “fatigue” in some way justifies the grossly deficient level of care they provided,” the decision said. “The Registrant’s conduct was inexplicable and unacceptable by any standard. No patient deserves to be treated in this manner.”

Dherdi graduated from the National Institute of Nursing Education in India in 2013 and passed their licensing exam in New York State after three attempts in 2023. They then registered as a nurse in Alberta, before registering in Manitoba through labour mobility in January 2024 and started work as an RN at Holy Family — where they already was employed — in April that year.

Dherdi voluntarily surrendered their certificate of practice 11 days after the incident, and is employed as a health-care aide.

Dherdi must pay the $8,000 fine and complete several training courses before being considered for reinstatement.

Should that happen, numerous restrictions will be imposed. Dherdi had no previous complaint or discipline history.

morgan.modjeski@freepress.mb.ca