Romulus Berejena

Introduction

Romulus Berejena is a Zimbabwean national and registered mental health nurse who qualified in February 2016 and worked in Greater London. In August 2026, a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fitness to practise panel struck him off the nursing register after a week-long virtual hearing, held from 18 to 25 August 2026, found that he had pursued a vulnerable young woman he encountered in a hospital emergency department on Instagram and, in a separate incident, had kissed a senior colleague on the lips without her consent.

Background Information

Berejena qualified as a registered mental health nurse in February 2016 and worked in Greater London for a hospital trust. He spent his career in mental health services, including in the trust’s Mental Health Assessment Unit, the unit where the incident involving a colleague later examined by the panel took place.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated. The findings in this section come from an NMC fitness to practise panel, which found the allegations proven and issued its sanction. These are regulatory findings, not criminal convictions.

The case began with a complaint from a woman referred to in the proceedings as Patient A, who was brought to the emergency department on 22 May 2024 after a car accident. While she lay on a stretcher in a corridor, wearing a neck brace and awaiting assessment, Berejena saw her; he was not involved in her care. According to his own account to his employer, a friend of the patient told him she was single, and he remarked that he was at work but “might add her on Instagram”.

After she was discharged, Berejena found her on Instagram. In messages seen by the panel, he said he remembered her from the hospital, told her he “wouldn’t have followed if I didn’t find ya attractive” and asked her to go on a date. He then sent two voice notes, saying in one, “I’m probably going to be driving because we know what you’re on, in it.” In the other he said, “You know what you’re on, so we don’t need to get into it babe.”

A second matter came to light during the NMC investigation. A senior sister, referred to as Colleague B and granted anonymity by the panel, reported that on 19 July 2022 Berejena had kissed her in the hospital’s Mental Health Assessment Unit, where she had come at his request to help manage a distressed patient. In her evidence, she said he told her, “I saw you downstairs without your mask. You look very pretty.” He then placed both hands on her cheeks, pulled her face towards his and kissed her on the lips.

Berejena admitted sending the Instagram messages but denied any sexual motive, telling the panel he thought the woman was “fun” and that he had hoped to create Instagram content with her. The panel rejected that explanation, noting that content creation was never mentioned in the messages, and pointed instead to his words at an internal disciplinary interview, when he said he had wanted to get to know her “because she was an attractive girl”. He admitted making the comment to Colleague B but denied the kiss, offering what the panel described as a “highly elaborate” account of the unit’s layout and the position of a blue tray to explain why it could not have happened. The panel preferred Colleague B’s evidence, found the kiss proved, and found that it was unwanted, sexual in nature and had the effect of violating her dignity, though not that he had intended to violate it, accepting the kiss may have been “an impulsive, ill-judged or misguided act”.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Patient A blocked Berejena and, on 29 May 2024, complained to the hospital’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service. His employer suspended him two days later, and a trust disciplinary hearing in August 2024 gave him an 18-month written warning before the trust referred him to the NMC. Colleague B, when told he denied the kiss, chose not to pursue a formal complaint, fearing it would become a case of “he said, she said”, and instead began avoiding the unit when he was on duty. She said in her witness statement, “I felt appalled that he had done that to me. I felt offended and disgusted,” and told the panel she had felt “violated”.

The panel found the patient’s circumstances placed her in “a position of heightened vulnerability”, and that the fact he had not personally treated her did not release him from his professional obligations; fellow practitioners and the public, it said, would regard his conduct as “deplorable”. After the findings, Berejena gave further evidence under oath in which he accepted that his approach to Patient A had been sexually motivated and described it as a “predatory boundary” breach. He apologised for the distress caused to both women, but asked to be suspended rather than removed, saying he loved his career. The panel called his insight “emerging and developing” but found much of it had come only during the hearing itself, and that by persisting until the findings in an account it had found untrue he had “effectively alleged that Colleague B was lying”, raising “significant concerns regarding your integrity, personal accountability and professional judgement”. It concluded his continued registration was “fundamentally incompatible” with the standards expected of the profession and that nothing short of striking him off would suffice.

Current Status

Berejena was removed from the nursing register, and the panel imposed an 18-month interim suspension order to cover any appeal period. He represented himself at the hearing and has 28 days from receiving the written decision to lodge an appeal; he told the panel he would read the decision before deciding whether to do so.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The striking-off order ends Berejena’s registered nursing career in the United Kingdom unless a successful appeal overturns it, and the interim suspension order keeps him off the register while any appeal is decided. In its reasoning, the panel said that “A patient attending hospital is entitled to trust that a healthcare professional will not use an encounter arising through healthcare as an opportunity to pursue a personal or sexual relationship” and that, equally, “a healthcare professional is entitled to attend work without being subjected to unwanted sexualised behaviour from a colleague.” Reporting on the case presented it as part of a series of NMC proceedings stressing that sexual misconduct towards colleagues can put patient safety at risk by making clinical workplaces feel unsafe for staff.