Two nurses who dragged an elderly woman’s cold, lifeless body from a nursing home fountain in a bid to cover up a potential drowning have been given a slap on the wrist. Lea Sanchez was this week let off with a caution, and Catherine Condon will be back at work within three months after being suspended. She must also undertake an ethics and record-keeping education program. They were found to have covered up crucial details about a 76-year-old woman’s death in May 2011 from her family, police, doctors and other staff. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Ms Condon and Ms Sanchez guilty of professional misconduct after being told the elderly woman was left lying dead in the fountain for almost an hour before she was discovered by the nurses. The media has been gagged from printing the name of the five-star aged-care facility, where the woman was “found lying face down in a fountain”, for legal reasons. Ms Condon instructed Ms Sanchez and other staff to move the 76-year-old dementia sufferer from the fountain to her room, dry her body, dress her and put her in bed. Barrister Rachel Ellyard, who was representing the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, told VCAT: “In the immediate aftermath of (the woman) being found, no full account of the circumstances of her being found were given to relevant people.” Ms Condon and Ms Sanchez knowingly faked the victim’s medical reports and did not tell the woman’s family or her doctor how she had really died in the fountain. Night staff were told the woman, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, died of a heart attack in the courtyard. Police and the Coroner were only told of the accidental death when a carer, who first saw the woman in the fountain from a window above, suspected a cover-up. The carer was sacked the next day. It was only after CCTV footage was discovered by authorities that the truth was revealed, and triggered a coronial inquest, which found Ms Condon the “leader in the cover-up”. The pair has continued to work in aged care since the cover-up. In his findings, senior VCAT member Ian Proctor said Ms Condon hid the details from police. Victoria Police confirmed neither Ms Sanchez nor Ms Condon had received any criminal charges over the matter, which has taken almost six years to be brought before VCAT
