A woman who pleaded guilty to using other nurses’ stolen credentials to land jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador care homes was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. She didn’t show up.
Lisa Driscoll — who court and police records show has also gone by the surnames Strickland, O’Driscoll and Harris — was charged in 2023 after an investigation by the health authority Central Health and CBC News found she had worked under the identities of real, licensed nurses at long-term care facilities across the province between March 2021 and late 2022. According to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, she held a position as a licensed practical nurse at Chancellor Park in St. John’s for more than a year and took shorter assignments at Lane’s and Kenny’s Pond. At Lakeside Homes in Gander, where she was placed through the travel-staffing firm Staffing Solutions, investigators allege she also stole prescription medications meant for residents.
A guilty plea in May — then six delays
Driscoll pleaded guilty in a St. John’s courtroom in May 2025 to five charges: two counts of fraud over $5,000, two counts of unlawfully obtaining or possessing another person’s identity with intent to commit an indictable offence, and one count of failing to comply with a probation order. Police had originally laid additional charges, including breaching both the province’s Licensed Practical Nurses Act and its Registered Nurses Act.
More than a year later, she still hasn’t been sentenced. A hearing set for Sept. 25 didn’t happen. Neither did Thursday’s, Oct. 1 — Driscoll didn’t appear. The court scheduled a brief appearance for Oct. 7 just to set yet another sentencing date. Court officials say Driscoll has fired two different lawyers so far this year, which has contributed to the delays.
Every time one of these stories surfaces, it’s because somewhere in the chain — the staffing agency, the facility’s HR office, the provincial college — a license number went unverified. A real RN or LPN number belongs to exactly one person, and checking it against the provincial registry takes minutes, not months. I’ve worked both sides of a staffing shortage, and I understand the pressure to fill a shift fast. But when that verification step gets skipped, the people who pay for it are the residents who have no way to check anyone’s credentials themselves — the same residents whose medications investigators say went missing at Lakeside Homes. A sentencing hearing that keeps slipping doesn’t undo that.
What happens next
If the sentence follows the fraud-over-$5,000 counts to their maximum, Driscoll could face a penitentiary term under Canada’s Criminal Code, though a guilty plea and no prior record often lead courts toward a shorter or conditional sentence instead. For now the case remains unresolved — no sentence, no firm date, and a court record that has grown longer than the original five charges. CBC News, which first reported Driscoll’s case in 2023, has continued to track its progress through the courts; its most recent report on the Oct. 1 no-show did not reach a Driscoll representative for comment.
Driscoll has already admitted to the conduct underlying her five charges, so this is not an open allegation: she pleaded guilty to it in court, under oath. What remains undecided is only the sentence.