Bendigo Health Care Group is challenging the Logan decision (s.604 – Appeal of decisions) before the Full Bench today.
November 11, 2016
A Hamilton resthome caregiver has admitted assaulting an elderly man she was caring for in a city rest home. However, Judge Simon Menzies held off convicting Sonali Ananta Deo in the Hamilton District Court today so an application could be filed for a discharge without conviction. Deo admitted assaulting Piri Hemi between June 9 and June 11 after his son, Allan, set up a camera in his room at Cascades Rest Home. Allan Hemi’s footage showed the 23-year-old hitting and slapping his father as he lay on his bed.
November 11, 2016
In a significant win for the West Australian Government, agreements for new pay deals have been reached with the state’s doctors and nurses. The Australian Medical Association (AMA), the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) and United Voice have agreed to accept a pay rise of 1.5 per cent. It is less than what was being sought, with the AMA having sought more than 6 per cent over three years and the ANF saying in April that 1.5 per cent was unlikely to be acceptable. However, the AMA has described the deal as a good outcome in the current economic climate. The AMA’s agreement runs for three years, while those for the nurses and enrolled nurses run for two years.
November 11, 2016
St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney is facing a s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) launched by an ex-staffer (Grygiel).
November 10, 2016
A male mental health nurse who had sex with a vulnerable female patient has been struck off the nursing register. In its verdict published after an earlier Wellington hearing, the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal has also censured the nurse for his unethical behaviour and ordered him to pay $9920 towards the costs of his prosecution. The nurse had “exploited” the woman’s troubles with alcohol by giving her wine, the lawyers representing the Health and Disability Commissioner’s prosecutor told the tribunal. His name has been suppressed, to protect the patient, whose name is also suppressed. The nurse, who had been registered for 32 years, was working as a forensic court liaison nurse for an unnamed district health board. The woman, a client of its community mental health service a number of times, had a pending court appearance for which she required the nurse’s services. She had a history of major depressive disorder, generalised anxiety and panic attacks, thinking about suicide, and alcohol issues. She was particularly vulnerable to exploitation after drinking alcohol.
November 10, 2016
Former Westpac Pacific Fair home finance manager David St Pierre has confessed to cheating elderly and vulnerable customers out of millions of dollars in a dodgy investment scheme run on the Gold Coast between 2008 and 2013. The former award-winning employee pleaded guilty to three counts of using his position at Westpac dishonestly, with the intention to gain an advantage for himself or others. The loans totalled about $2.5 million. St Pierre was originally charged with seven counts of fraud and was expected to face an eight-day trial later this month, with 11 witnesses to give evidence.
November 10, 2016
An application by Glasshouse Country Care Association (Sch. 3, Item 15 – Application by agreement to terminate collective agreement-based transitional instrument) will be determined by Fair Work Commissioner Simpson in his Brisbane Chambers.
November 10, 2016
A nurse found guilty of murdering two women with lethal doses of insulin had previously been investigated for injecting the same medication into patients who did not need it during her problematic career. Megan Jean Haines, 49, was stripped of her nurse’s registration in 2008 after it emerged she had given insulin to non-diabetic patients on two separate occasions at a medical centre in Victoria. Six years later she used this same method to murder two women at a NSW North Coast nursing home after learning she was the subject of a potentially career-ending complaints investigation.
