A woman who was jailed for using fake nursing qualifications to work at aged care facilities in South Australia and New South Wales has been fined for breaching health regulations. In March Jennifer Anne Reed, 66, was jailed for four years for deception offences and given a non-parole term of 14 months. She also was ordered to pay almost $30,000 to the tax office for undeclared earnings. Now in Adelaide Magistrates Court, Reed has been pursued over her deception by the Australian Health Regulation Agency. She had claimed she was a trained and registered nurse and she then used the identity of a woman with a very similar name to her own. Reed worked at nine aged care facilities in northern and western Adelaide and at one at Deniliquin in New South Wales over more than two years, the court heard. The prosecution said a prime concern was Reed’s access to medications in the jobs she held. “[The biggest concern] of course is obviously the fact that this woman was responsible for administering drugs of dependence,” prosecutor Anthony Allen told the court. The woman’s lawyer said Reed’s family and friends now knew of her actions and she was no longer able to put her head in the sand about the matter. Magistrate Paul Bennett said he would have taken a harsher view had the woman not already been severely punished but made clear he needed to balance the need to deter others from such offending against punishment already imposed. Mr Bennett said given Reed’s age and the damage to her reputation, she was unlikely to find employment once released from prison. He said she was likely to have a limited capacity to pay the maximum possible fine of $30,000, so he imposed a $7,000 penalty.
