An Invercargill rest home worker has admitted stealing thousands from an elderly couple under her care. The 38-year-old woman, who has interim name suppression, appeared before Judge Bernadette Farnan in the Invercargill District Court on Tuesday. Police prosecutor sergeant Penny Stratford told the court the woman was a care worker at the rest home when she found an eftpos card and pin number on a piece of paper in a drawer, which belonged to an elderly couple she cared for. The woman then made 18 transactions using the card, and a total of $7200 was withdrawn from the couple’s account, Stratford said. The offending came to light when the couple’s daughter was helping with their finances and noticed the activity in the account, the court was told. The woman is applying for a discharge without conviction. Judge Farnan noted the woman’s guilty plea, but did not enter a conviction due to the application. She remanded the woman to reappear in court on March 7, and ordered restorative justice be explored.
January 12, 2017
Nurses from New Zealand are being targeted by a Hobart-based healthcare agency in a new recruitment push to meet the shortage of nurses in Tasmania. Searson Buck Health and Nurseline state manager Cathy Beswick said the agency was in the early stages of a relationship with a New Zealand company to recruit nurses into Tasmania for short-term contracts initially, with the potential for some to stay permanently. “Pay rates in New Zealand are less than in Tasmania so that is an incentive for them,” Ms Beswick said. “It’s very much in the early stages, but it’s just a different way that Nurseline is trying to meet the shortage of nurses in Tasmania.
January 12, 2017
A man believed to be suffering from a medical episode has crashed into his unit’s fence and backyard at Thebarton. Emergency services, including MedStar crews were called to the ECH aged care units on Dew St just before 8.30am after reports of a single car crash.
January 12, 2017
A Queensland medical graduate who was left quadriplegic after a car accident says being offered a place as an intern at the Gold Coast University Hospital is “incredible and surreal”. Doctor Dinesh Palipana became a quadriplegic in 2010 when he was in a bad car crash on the Gateway Motorway. Last week, he was offered an intern placement, making him the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland.
January 12, 2017
Rural communities are being left without access to medical treatment for weeks at a time as Western Australia’s Mid West region grapples with a nurse shortage, local councils say. Six shires across the Mid West and Murchison have called on the State Government and Opposition to commit to increasing the minimum numbers of staff at regional nursing posts from one to three. Between December and January, the towns of Cue, Mount Magnet and Yalgoo were left without a healthcare professional for up to two weeks.
January 12, 2017
All South Australian Government residential care workers will undergo psychological testing before being given the all-clear to work.
January 11, 2017
A s.185 (Enterprise agreement) application by Kath Dickson Family Centre Limited T/A Kath Dickson Centre for its Kath Dickson Family Centre Enterprise Agreement 2016 has been approved by Commissioner Gregory in Melbourne.
January 11, 2017
Two people have appeared in court charged with assault after a paramedic was allegedly kicked in the back in far north Queensland. A 47-year-old man was accused of kicking the paramedic while he was treating a 46-year-old woman patient, who is herself accused of spitting on his arm. The woman was found in possession of a dangerous drug following a later search.
