Brigitte Cleroux, 50, was arrested in Ottawa last August after her latest deceit was discovered by a colleague seeking to file a complaint against her with a governing body for nurses and an imposter alert popped up.

She pleaded guilty in January to seven offenses including impersonation and assault with a weapon – for administrating medication and injections to 20 patients at a fertility clinic and a dental clinic.

Ontario Court Justice Robert Wadden was quoted by public broadcaster CBC as saying her fraud struck “at the core of the trust our society puts in our health-care system.”

Minus credit for time spent in detention awaiting trial, Cleroux must serve five years and eight months in a federal penitentiary, her lawyer told AFP.

Cleroux had reportedly committed similar frauds throughout her adult life, using forged resumes and fake identity cards with dozens of aliases and accumulating a long criminal record.

When found out, she would sometimes disappear before she could be held accountable.

Cleroux still faces prosecution on separate charges of having posed as a nurse at a British Columbia hospital for a year.

Several patients have also launched a lawsuit against the British Columbia health authority for failing to verify her nursing credentials when employing her.