A s.185 (Enterprise agreement) application by HammondCare T/A HammondCare for its HammondCare Residential Care and and HammondCare at Home Enterprise Agreement 2018 has been approved by Fair Work Deputy President Cross in Sydney on 30 May 2019.
June 3, 2019
A s.185 (Enterprise agreement) application from Ardrossan Community Hospital Inc for the Ardrossan Community Hospital Inc & ANMF (Private Sector) Nursing Employees Enterprise Agreement 2019 has been approved by Fair Work Commissioner Bissett in Melbourne on May 2019.
June 3, 2019
The Health Services Union and Supported Tenancy Accommodation and Respite Tasmania have a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) on foot at 9.30am this morning before Fair Work Commissioner Lee in Court 2 – Level 6 in both Hobart and Melbourne
June 3, 2019
Video has surfaced of a 92-year-old mother confessing to shooting her 72-year-old son dead after he threatened to put her in a nursing home. Anna Mae Blessing was arrested last year for shooting her son Thomas dead. Blessing, who dies in November in hospice care while awaiting trial, says in a video interview with police that she had two guns stashed inside her dressing gown. She told police that as Thomas came towards her she fired multiple rounds at her only son. “I can’t remember the calibre, it was a good size one,” she said. “I backed up and I pulled the trigger, and it broke the mirror and I don’t know what I did. Then Tom was going to come at me again so I pulled the trigger … I’m sure the second round hit him.”
June 3, 2019
A Petone man who decapitated his elderly neighbour believed he was responsible for his being evicted. Eugene Baker has admitted murdering 71-year-old Francis Tyson in November last year. Both men dealt synthetic drugs from their Jackson Street Housing New Zealand flats. In the days leading up to the killing, Baker had a number of arguments with Tyson around dealing. He believed the pensioner was an informant for Housing New Zealand and was to blame for his eviction notice. The 42-year-old will be sentenced in June.
June 3, 2019
An elderly man charged with murdering his partner at a Raumati Beach retirement village has been found unfit to stand trial. The finding was made at the High Court in Wellington on Friday, about Edmund Alan Jenkins, 75, who had cognitive impairment due to dementia, and was not going to improve. Edith Roderique, 70, of Ōtaki, died on March 4 or 5. Roderique and Jenkins had been in a relationship for about three years and she often visited him at the retirement village where he lived, and sometimes stayed the night, a court decision said. In her judgment Justice Rebecca Ellis said after spending the night together Jenkins woke to the alarm at 7.30am on March 5. He got out of bed and found a knife that had not been put away, went back to the bed and stabbed Roderique repeatedly in the chest. A medical alarm was set off and Jenkins showed the body to the first staff member to attend. Jenkins had blood on him and told the first person, and others, “I did it, I did it, I did it”. Later Jenkins told police he just meant to scare her with the knife as a joke but she jumped at him and screamed. He was said to have a hazy recollection of what happened after that, but acknowledged he stabbed her, a police summary of witness accounts said. The judge said Jenkins was unfit to stand trial and made him a special patient. Name suppression was lifted. He sat in the dock with a nurse while lawyer Janine Bonifant represented him during the court hearing. At the end of the hearing the judge asked the nurse if Jenkins had understood what had happened at the hearing on Friday. “As well as he can,” the nurse replied. Two psychiatrists gave evidence that Jenkins probably had frontal lobe dementia, and his thinking and language were impaired.
June 3, 2019
A Victorian surgeon charged with raping a doctor, after allegedly removing a condom during sex without his permission, is allowed to keep practising, a tribunal says. The male surgeon was charged with rape and sexual assault in September last year over the alleged incident with the male doctor in mid-2017. The incident unfolded after the pair went out for dinner, then had sex in the doctor’s home. The surgeon assured him he would use a condom, but the doctor discovered he had removed it during intercourse and became “very upset”. When he asked the surgeon why, he replied it “feels better”, the tribunal was told. The doctor alleged that the surgeon reassured him his health was not at risk, even though he had unprotected sex with other men as recently as six weeks earlier. The surgeon had also admitted earlier during dinner he was taking medicine to lower his chance of HIV infection, to which the doctor replied it he saw it as an added safety net and would always use a condom. Feeling “very distressed and concerned” after the unprotected sex, the doctor reported the matter to police. The surgeon informed the Medical Board of Australia of the charges and said he would fight them. The board then suspended him from practising in November 2018, describing the alleged conduct as “egregious” and said it would undermine confidence in the medical profession if the public was aware of the circumstances claimed. However, the surgeon successfully overturned the suspension at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal which ruled by majority the immediate action was not in the public interest. The tribunal said while the allegations are “grave”, they are yet to be tested in court and it could be at least a year before the charges are dealt with. It also said there’s no evidence justifying an immediate suspension, on the basis the surgeon poses a serious risk to others. The Medical Board is fighting the VCAT ruling, with a trial set for the Supreme Court in July.
June 3, 2019
A paramedic has described feeling scared and violated after he was violently and sexually assaulted by a female patient while trapped in the back of an ambulance waiting for help to arrive. Emma Elizabeth Biggs, 34, appeared mildly drunk and highly emotional when the two paramedics arrived to a report of a woman needing help in Civic last November. But while driving to the hospital she lunged at the paramedic in the back of the ambulance. When he asked her to sit back down she said “no you’re going to f–k me”. She grabbed his crotch and squeezed and swore at them. She exposed herself to the paramedic sitting with her and threw things at both men until they were eventually able to sedate her. The paramedic who was sexually assaulted said at a sentencing for Biggs in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday that he had felt uncomfortable, violated and fearful, and that the attack had stripped him of the ability to do his job and act with her best interests at heart, reducing him to what he felt was a scared blithering mess. He feared she would complain about him, that he might lose his job, and that no one would believe the word of two male paramedics over a female patient. “There I was, a 6 foot 90 kilogram bloke completely helpless against a petite female, how could this be, I still don’t completely understand it,” he said. “My colleagues and I do what we do because frontline paramedics … genuinely want to help people,” he said. “I don’t care who you are I will always do my best to help. My real fear is that the defendant has taken away my ability to do that.” The paramedic said with next to no support from the ACT Ambulance Service that he continued to deal with the impact of the attack on his own, though was lucky to have supportive family and friends. He said the attitudes of some people were disappointing, and the difference in expectation between genders. “I would like to state that regardless of gender the impacts and ongoing effects following an incident like this are very very real,” he said. Her attack had changed the way he worked and he believed it would forever. The paramedic said he hoped Biggs’ sentence was a wake up call to get the help she needed. “As always my colleagues and I will be there to help you and everyone else should you need us. “If you need us you know our number.” Magistrate Glenn Theakston said it was a shame someone with no criminal history had come to court faced with several serious charges. Biggs had pleaded guilty early to two common assaults, an act of indecency and damaging a machine worth $25,000 in the back of the ambulance. He said whatever the gender of the patient or the paramedic, the woman’s behaviour was unacceptable. He said the woman was expressed embarrassment and shame and had taken full responsibility for what happened though she did not remember the incident. Watching herself on surveillance footage had been difficult, the court heard. Mr Theakston said her references showed her to be a pleasant, caring, quiet and reserved woman but she had a serious problem with alcohol. The court heard the woman had booked herself into a residential rehabilitation centre a month after the incident, and was successfully continuing the program today. The case was an example of the fact that alcohol, although a normal and common substance, had the ability to rob some people of their choices and ability to control their actions, Mr Theakston said. He sentenced Biggs to a total of five months imprisonment but suspended the term immediately. He also imposed an 18 month good behaviour order and and a 12 month prohibition order.
