License of Cedar Rapids nurse suspended after drug charges

The Iowa Board of Nursing has suspended the license of a nursing home caregiver accused of accepting $8,000 from a patient, being under the influence while on duty, theft and drug offenses.

In July 2022, the board of nursing charged Tiffany Banghart of Cedar Rapids with initiating an emotional or business relationship with a patient for personal gain, and with soliciting, borrowing or misappropriating money from a patient. According to the board, Banghart admitted that while working as a home health nurse, she told a patient of financial hardships she was facing and accepted $8,000 from the patient.

As a result, the board placed Banghart’s license on probation for one year.

A few weeks later, in September 2022, Banghart was arrested and charged with theft, possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. Those charges are still pending. At the time of her arrest, Banghart was working in an Iowa nursing home and allegedly admitted to a board investigator she smoked marijuana on occasion. According to the board, a mental health evaluator then reported that Banghart was not “in a good head space to function effectively as a nurse.”

In November 2022, Heritage Specialty Care, the nursing home where Banghart worked, notified the board of an incident. According to the board, the administrator reported Banghart was on duty when she notified other staff members she was falling asleep, unable to see her computer screen and incapable of passing medications to patients. She was allegedly described by staff as glassy eyed, with slurred speech and erratic behavior.

When asked to submit to a drug screen, she allegedly refused and left the facility with keys to the narcotics-storage unit. A Cedar Rapids police officer went to her home to retrieve the keys and reported she “must have taken more of what she already had when she left” Heritage Specialty Care, as her eyes were “wild and glassy.” Banghart was fired.

On Dec. 1, 2022, Banghart was arrested on a charge of theft related to a shoplifting incident at a Walmart store. A trial on that charge was scheduled for July 5, and a bench warrant was issued for Banghart’s arrest when she failed to appear in court.

A few days after the December arrest, Banghart was arrested again and charged with possession of marijuana, which resulted in a guilty plea to a lesser charge of possession of drug paraphernalia.

In January, the board filed charges against Banghart, alleging unauthorized possession or use of a controlled substance and being unable to practice nursing with reasonable skill and safety. At a recent board hearing, Banghart testified the controlled substances police found on her on two separate occasions belonged to others and she denied being under the influence at work in November 2022. She allegedly said she had not sought substance abuse treatment as recommended because she believed it to be unwarranted.

The board ultimately concluded Banghart was not capable of safely practicing nursing and suspended her license indefinitely. The board’s order indicates her license cannot be reinstated unless she completes treatment and establishes that the reasons for suspension no longer exist and it is in the public interest for her license to be reinstated.

Among other nurses sanctioned by the board, the license of Laura Krugle, who worked for the Iowa Department of Corrections as a registered nurse at the Anamosa State Penitentiary in 2021, was placed on probation for a year.

The board charged the Cedar Rapids nurse with making sexual comments to a patient and attempting to initiate a personal relationship with a patient. The board alleged that Krugle initiated a lengthy, personal conversation with an inmate, then contacted the inmate by email using a false name to conceal her identity, and then engaged the inmate in written conversations of a sexual nature.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.