A s.185 (Enterprise agreement) application from the Richmond Fellowship Tasmania Inc T/A Richmond Fellowship Tasmania for its Richmond Fellowship Tasmania Inc Enterprise Agreement 2018 (Social, community, home care and disability services) has been agreed by Fair Work Deputy President Saunders in Newcastle on 5 July 2019.
July 9, 2019
Victorian woman who pretended to be a nurse has been fined $15,000 plus costs. Brittany Fairthorne was convicted in the Frankston Magistrates’ Court of charges laid by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). She was found guilty of holding herself out as a registered nurse and two counts of providing false information to an AHPRA inspector. She pleaded guilty to these offences under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. The charges were laid after an AHPRA investigation into allegations that Fairthorne held herself out as a registered nurse and injected a patient with substances which purported to be cosmetic injectables. AHPRA also alleged that, during its investigation, Fairthorne provided false or misleading information and documents to an AHPRA inspector. Fairthorne has never held registration as a nurse under the National Law with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). She was fined a total of $15,000 and ordered to pay AHPRA’s costs in the amount of $13,495.85. Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia Chair Associate Professor Lynette Cusack said Fairthorne’s conviction highlights the importance of protecting the trust that people place in registered health professionals.
July 9, 2019
A s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) sought by Ms Abbie Ryan against Stafford City Pharmacy Pty Ltd has been refused by Fair Work Commissioner Hunt, in Brisbane, on 5 July 2019. He Ruled: “Having concluded that Ms Ryan’s employment commenced on 23 August 2018 and the dismissal took effect on 20 February 2019, I determine that Ms Ryan has not served the minimum employment period required by s. 383 of the Act at the time she was notified of her dismissal. The application is therefore dismissed.”
July 9, 2019
A homeopathic consultant could be misleading the public by calling himself a doctor, according to the Ministry of Health. Raghubir Singh Rehan has operated Universal Homeopathic NZ in Papatoetoe, south Auckland, since 2007 under the nickname Dr Preet. Signage outside the business on Great South Rd says “doctor, open” surrounded in small print and its website refers to Rehan as “a qualified homeopathic consultant and well known doctor”. However, it was illegal to claim to be a health practitioner of a particular type if unqualified in that field under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance (HPCA) Act 2003, Ministry of Health chief legal advisor Phil Knipe said. A level 10 tertiary Doctoral Degree was required to obtain the title ‘doctor’ in New Zealand. Rehan’s Diploma in Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery from Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University in India only translates to a level seven graduate diploma, certificate or bachelors degree. Rehan said Dr Preet was simply a nickname to avoid confusion over the pronunciation of his name, but he was free to use the title as it had been awarded to him in India.
July 9, 2019
Letitia O’Dwyer, from the Rangotai electorate area in Wellington, said that she intends to stand for the Capital & Coast District Health Board (CCDHB) elections 2019.
July 9, 2019
An experienced Christchurch physiotherapist has been struck off the register for professional misconduct including a request to massage near a patient’s “clitoral region”. The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal heard the case against Peter William Chum and announced its findings in Christchurch on Thursday. Chum faced 11 charges of professional misconduct over an appointment with a woman at her home on 2016. He denied all of the charges and did not appear before the tribunal. The complainant, whose name and identity were suppressed, had recently suffered a traumatic brain injury after an accident and was recovering after hospitalisation and surgery. Chum offered to come to her home. The woman had been referred to Chum for an assessment of vocal and swallowing problems as he specialised in this area. After assessing and treating the woman’s throat and neck muscles he offered to massage her lower back, saying muscle tension in that area could affect her vocal problems. She agreed and Chum requested she remove all of her clothes. The complainant said she thought that was strange and double checked. Chum confirmed she should take all her clothes off and put on a robe. Once she was lying face down on the massage table he asked her to remove her robe. She said Chum draped one towel over her and then asked her to roll over to lie on her back. As he worked on her hips, outer and then inner thighs he moved the towel to the side, exposing her. Each time he did this she tried to move the towel back into place. She became increasingly uncomfortable and “alarmed” as he moved higher up her inner thighs. The woman said she felt uncomfortable but did not ask Chum to stop because he seemed professional and so she thought “it must be normal”. When he asked if she was comfortable for him to massage near her clitoral region she said no and the massage stopped. The woman asked if he massaged other clients that intimate way. He told her he had and that it was helpful to release tension. She understood him to be referring to orgasm. He said in a statement to the tribunal he had not been referring to anything sexual in nature and she must have misunderstood him. She talked to friends about the appointment later that night and they told her to make a complaint. Chum, a registered physiotherapist for 13 years, was found guilty by the tribunal on Thursday of inadequate draping, unnecessary treatment and unwarranted and unwelcome touching of intimate areas of the complainant’s body. He was also found guilty of malpractice, negligence and bringing the profession of physiotherapy into disrepute for all but one charge. Chair David Carden said the tribunal found insufficient evidence Chum engaged in a conversation of a sexual nature after the treatment.
July 9, 2019
An allegation that a worker shoved a Wet Wipe towelette into a dementia patient’s mouth to silence her at an aged care home was made due to “bad blood” that had developed between workmates, Manly Local Court heard on Friday. The court heard a work colleague complained to management that care service employee Anita Prajapati, 31, also allegedly slapped the woman, aged in her late 80s, after she screamed while her clothes were being changed. Mr Prajapati’s workmate, Larissa Daley, accused her of shoving a “scrunched-up” towelette into the elderly woman’s mouth at Peter Cosgrove House — a high-care unit at the RSL “War Vets” home at Narrabeen on November 1 last year. The court heard the 31-year-old was suspended after Ms Daley told management she saw Ms Prajapati allegedly assault the elderly patient, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Ms Prajapati has pleaded not guilty to one charge of common assault. The court was told that Ms Daley had been upset that Ms Prajapati had criticised her standard of work on a number of occasions, including using her mobile phone while feeding dementia patients, and that she had “belittled” Ms Daley in front of their colleagues. Another colleague, Sujan Bista-Basnet, told the court on Friday that she had seen Ms Daley become angry and aggressive with Ms Prajapati after she criticised Ms Daley’s work. When giving evidence in May, Ms Daley, told the court she and Ms Prajapati were helping the patient move from a chair to her bed at 2.30pm when the elderly woman, who can no longer talk, screamed out. “That’s when Anita slapped her in the mouth and said: ‘Stop that’,” Ms Daley said. Ms Daley said a few moments later, when she and Ms Prajapati were trying to undress the patient, the elderly woman screamed out again. “(Anita) put the Wet Wipe in her mouth and said: ‘I told you to stop that’,” Ms Daley said. “It ended up scrunched up in her mouth.” Ms Daley did not report the alleged assault until 4.30pm, after she and Ms Prajapati attended to two more patients. Management then contacted police. Ms Prajapati denied slapping the elderly woman or placing the towelette in her mouth. She told the court that she had only wiped food from around the patient’s mouth as they prepared her for bed. Ms Prajapati’s barrister Derek Shridhar, said Ms Daley had an “axe to grind” with his client. “There is a level of bad blood between them,” Mr Shridhar said. “Ms Daley wants to get (Ms Prajapati) off her back. She makes a complaint and beats it up significantly.” Outside court Ms Prajapati said the allegation against her was “really not fair”. Magistrate Michelle Goodwin reserved her decision and adjourned the matter to August 26.
July 8, 2019
Professor Richard Fleming, executive director of Dementia Training Australia, has announced he is stepping down to explore other interests. DTA has appointed Professor Belinda Goodenough as its new executive director.
