An assistant nurse working at Southern Cross Care NSW & ACT’s RAC facility in Marsfield, 18km north-west of Sydney CBD, withdrew more than $10,000 from the bank accounts of two residents.
The Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) has permanently banned Amandeep Singh from providing health services after the 35-year-old admitted to using the debit cards of the residents to spend $10,355.66.
Singh took the debit card of a female resident living with dementia to buy $9,069.81 worth of goods across 320 separate transactions between March and November last year.
In November last year, Mr Singh took another resident’s card to bankroll 56 purchases totalling $1,285.85.
He was caught when a relative of the female resident noticed large numbers of transactions on her card. A senior staff member at the RAC reported the crimes to police and sacked Singh on the grounds of gross misconduct after he admitted the offences.
Singh was charged with two counts of dishonestly obtain property by deception in February and was convicted of both offences in Hornsby Local Court in March. He was sentenced to a total of 18 months in prison to be served by an intensive community corrections order and was also ordered to repay both patients along with a further $1,500 in fines.
In his evidence to the HCCC, Singh “agreed that his actions constituted elder abuse”.
