A senior nurse who clashed with doctors over feeding formula to premature babies in a Melbourne special-care nursery has settled a legal dispute with the hospital.

Last year, Melissah Burnett, the nurse unit manager of Box Hill Hospital’s special-care nursery, was accused of defying doctors’ orders and complaining about doctors when they did things she disagreed with. The nurse, who has 20 years’ experience, also allegedly belittled and intimidated staff.

But Ms Burnett claimed that she was being unfairly targeted for reporting clinical risk incidents and for trying to implement best practice guidelines for feeding breast milk to premature and sick infants, her lawyer Josh Bornstein said in November.

After anticipating that Eastern Health might sack her, Ms Burnett sought protection from the Federal Court in October, and in November Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg said that Eastern Health had breached its enterprise agreement by failing to conduct a fair investigation that provided Ms Burnett with procedural fairness.

Maurice Blackburn and Easter Health last week released a statement saying that proceedings in the Federal Court had been resolved by mutual agreement.

“Eastern Health has withdrawn its disciplinary investigation into Ms Burnett’s conduct, including any findings,” the statement said.

“Ms Burnett has resigned from her employment with Eastern Health. Eastern Health wishes her all the best in her future endeavours.”