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On June 8, 2016, Kitchener nurse Leigh Wardlaw was assigned a homecare shift: Her job was to care for a 13-year-old boy dying of brain cancer and to administer him morphine every two hours.

Seven hours into the shift, the boy’s parents became concerned about the state of the nurse: Wardlaw was falling asleep and unsteady on her feet.

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They asked the homecare agency to check on her and, when a supervisor arrived, she found Wardlaw in the boy’s room “swaying back and forth with her eyes closed.” When the supervisor asked when she injected the last round of morphine, Wardlaw told her it was administered at 10:30 p.m. It wasn’t yet 10 o’clock.

A subsequent narcotics count revealed that two or three vials of morphine were missing, along with 30 doses of Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication.

Despite attempts to dissuade her, Wardlaw insisted on driving home. She was stopped by police officers who recovered three needles and one used syringe with the boy’s name on it.