A woman who claims a male nurse sexually assaulted her while she was doped up on medication at a Brisbane hospital has sued, claiming he should not have been allowed near her because he had done it before. The 33-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, argued the Metro South Hospital and Health Service had a duty to protect her from nurse Vijay Arora because he had sexually assaulted a female patient a year earlier at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. She claims she was assaulted during the night as she lay in her hospital bed at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, at Coopers Plains, on August 3-4, 2013. Arora was on duty on her ward that night, she claims. According to a statement of claim filed in the District Court on August 2, the woman said she was vulnerable and drowsy from medication and could not call for other staff to help until the next morning. She claims she “feared further attacks” by Arora. She claims he digitally raped her and he squeezed her breasts with 14 separate “incidents” of sexual conduct. She is seeking $700,000 in damages for assault and battery, negligence and false imprisonment. She claims she has been left humiliated and anxious and she felt violated and powerless to resist the assaults. In February, Arora was acquitted of seven counts of sexual assaults and two counts of rape over this incident and two other complaints in separate instances involving women patients in 2012 and 2013. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency states on its website that Arora is suspended from practising as a nurse, and has been since May 2014.
