Mayo ICU nurse receives suspended sentence for forged prescriptions

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Sinéad Donohoe, a former ICU nurse at Mayo University Hospital, received a 16-month prison sentence at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court. Judge Eoin Garavan suspended the sentence in full for two years on condition that she continue attending her addiction counsellor. The proceedings were reported on October 10, 2025.

Donohoe pleaded guilty to two sample charges of theft and four of forgery. The original indictment contained 112 counts. The thefts of prescription books took place on unknown dates between September 1, 2019 and February 19, 2021. The four forgery offences occurred on May 1, June 22 and September 14, 2020, and January 20, 2021.

Gardaí recovered 109 forged prescriptions made using the stolen books. Donohoe had made up the doctors’ names and registration numbers. She told officers that workplace stress and pain from endometriosis led her to self-prescribe Solpadol, to which she became addicted. Detective Garda Tyrone Tobin confirmed that the medication appeared to be solely for her own use and there was no evidence she traded it.

Donohoe made full admissions and cooperated with gardaí. Her counsel, Bernard Madden, said her probation report was entirely positive and she was attending addiction counselling. The court heard that she had no previous convictions and her nursing registration had been suspended. Judge Garavan said she had abused her position, but accepted that working during the pandemic was difficult. He noted that her offending began before Covid.