Oakville, ON – An Oakville registered nurse has been suspended for seven months and will face a formal reprimand after a discipline panel found he sexually abused a vulnerable patient in the emergency room. Robert Collier, a nurse at Halton Healthcare’s Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital, admitted to kissing the patient, giving her his personal phone number on a piece of prescription paper, and making inappropriate comments after his shift had ended. The College of Nurses of Ontario’s Discipline Committee found, in a decision cited as College of Nurses of Ontario v Collier, 2025 CanLII 76498 (ON CNO), his actions constituted professional misconduct that was disgraceful, dishonourable, and unprofessional.
The incident occurred in the early morning of January 15, 2023. The patient, a 27 year old woman whose identity is protected by a publication ban, was brought to the emergency room by paramedics around 4:45 a.m. after her father found her unresponsive. She was severely intoxicated with alcohol, and her medical chart noted that her family had expressed concerns about recent suicidality. Mr. Collier was assigned to care for the patient during his night shift, which concluded at 8:00 a.m. Just before his shift ended, he moved the patient into a room and provided a report to the incoming nurse, stating the patient was “perking up and in good spirits.”
Immediately after his shift finished, at 8:01 a.m., Mr. Collier re-entered the patient’s room alone. During the next several minutes, he complimented the patient on her smile and her level of education. He then handed her a piece of a hospital prescription pad on which he had written his personal phone number, saying words to the effect of, “this is what the doctor ordered.” Before leaving, a kiss occurred between Mr. Collier and the patient. He left her room at approximately 8:08 a.m. About a minute later, the patient, now barefoot and in her street clothes, left her room holding the paper with the phone number. She had ripped out her own IV line. She walked down the hallway toward the exit and asked a security guard to call her a taxi.
The security guard, concerned for her well being, asked the patient to sit down and located her new nurse. The patient, who was visibly distraught, told the other nurse that Mr. Collier had kissed her and given her his phone number, and that she wanted to leave the hospital. The colleague convinced the patient to return to her room, and she was discharged later that day. According to an Agreed Statement of Facts presented at the hearing, when Mr. Collier arrived that evening for his next scheduled shift, he asked his colleague about that specific patient but did not inquire about any other patients from the previous night. Following the incident, Halton Healthcare terminated Mr. Collier’s employment on February 27, 2023.
The College of Nurses of Ontario brought forward three main allegations against Mr. Collier. The first was that he committed an act of professional misconduct by sexually abusing the patient when he kissed her. The second alleged that he failed to meet the standards of practice of the profession by breaching the therapeutic nurse-patient relationship with his inappropriate comments, by giving her his phone number, and by kissing her. The third allegation stated his conduct was disgraceful, dishonourable, or unprofessional. At his discipline hearing on April 24, 2025, Mr. Collier admitted to all the allegations.
The five-person discipline panel accepted his admission and found him guilty of all charges. In its decision, the panel noted that a kiss of a sexual nature constitutes sexual abuse under the province’s Health Professions Procedural Code. The panel also found that his actions clearly violated the College’s standards, which place the responsibility on the nurse to maintain professional boundaries and to use their position of power only for the patient’s needs, not their own. The panel described Mr. Collier’s conduct as dishonourable, stating it “demonstrated an element of moral failing by sexually violating a vulnerable, compromised patient under his care.” It further found the conduct disgraceful, writing that it “shames the Member and by extension the profession” and “casts serious doubt on the Member’s moral fitness and inherent ability to discharge the higher obligations the public expects professionals to meet.”
Both the College and Mr. Collier’s legal counsel presented a joint submission on the appropriate penalty. The College’s counsel highlighted the extreme vulnerability of the patient as an aggravating factor. Mitigating factors included Mr. Collier’s cooperation with the investigation, his admission of guilt which prevented the patient from having to testify, and his lack of any prior disciplinary history. The proposed penalty included a seven-month suspension, which both sides argued was in line with penalties in similar past cases that did not involve conduct requiring a mandatory revocation of a nurse’s license.
The panel accepted the joint submission. In addition to a formal oral reprimand, Mr. Collier’s nursing certificate is suspended for seven months. Upon his return to practice, he must adhere to several conditions. At his own expense, he must complete at least two sessions with a regulatory expert approved by the College to review his misconduct, discuss strategies for preventing recurrence, and develop a learning plan. For a period of 18 months after he resumes nursing, he must inform any employer of the panel’s decision and provide them with all the hearing documents. He is also forbidden from practicing independently in the community for 12 months. Finally, he may be required to reimburse the College up to $5,000 for any funding the patient accesses for therapy related to the sexual abuse. The panel concluded that the penalty was reasonable, in the public interest, and would serve to deter both Mr. Collier and other nurses from similar misconduct while protecting the public.
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