Nurse sanctioned after stealing dead patient’s debit card and buying $1000 worth of cigarettes
The nurse is "ashamed" of his conduct but has been reprimanded and suspended for the theft, tribunal says.
A palliative care nurse has been suspended for six months after stealing a debit card from a dead patient and using it to buy cigarettes.
He took the card from a storage room at a hospice in Melbourne for the belongings of patients who had passed away.
According to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the nurse used it to buy cigarettes on 17 separate occasions over a six-day period, spending a total of $1016.45.
At the time, in June 2023, he was working at a telephone-based service based in a hospice, having worked in palliative care for six years.
