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Nurse unethically receives $100k from a patient, Sees Licence Suspended

 Nurse unethically receives $100k from a patient, Sees Licence Suspended

Mr Nitin C, who has been working as a nurse for the past seven to eight years, was reprimanded by a three-member bench of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The main allegations concern receiving or accepting an amount of $100,000 from a patient.

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, Nitin has transgressed the boundaries that usually exist between a patient and a health care professional. He has admittedly been over-involved as he received a huge amount of money from an aged care resident.

Mr Nitin obtained a Bachelor of Nursing degree in India, after which he arrived in Australia in the year 2009. Since he had a temporary student visa, he pursued further nursing studies. After completing his studies, he registered as a nurse in 2012.

As per the Board, between June 2014 and February 2016, Nitin was working as a registered nurse providing nursing services to the old aged care residents. According to the report, he offered to take a 76-year-old woman to appointments that were external to health services. This includes trips to banks, going out for lunch, and even doing occasional or daily shopping.

It has been found out by the Tribune that while being out of working hours, he had discussed his personal and financial issues with the patient. Gradually he proceeded to ask for money in exchange for the external services that he provided. The payment was made in the form of cash, electronic fund transfers; he sometimes used the patient’s ATM card or conducted internet banking to withdraw money as per his wish.

A total of twenty payments have been made during the specified period, many of which were of thousands or hundreds of dollars. In an attempt to recover the money from Nitin, the woman called him multiple times from the middle of 2016 to the end of the year, but she failed. After considering the allegations and observing the evidence, the Tribunal determined that his registration as a nurse would be cancelled, and he would not be allowed to apply for employment in the field of public medical health services.

Divya Singh

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