A nurse has been suspended for three months after being caught on a security camera taking money from an Auckland retirement village resident.
In a decision published yesterday, the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal said Susifina Tameifuna had pleaded guilty to taking $70 and accepted it amounted to professional
misconduct.
The tribunal suspended the registered nurse, censured her, ordered her to pay $500 costs and refused to continue the interim suppression of her name.
The female resident's daughter told the tribunal that because items had been going missing from her mother's apartment, the family decided to install a security camera.
The tribunal said it watched a DVD recorded on the camera on November 19, 2006, which showed Ms Tameifuna entering and searching the woman's bedroom.
"She is shown picking up a wallet and looking through another bag against the far wall of the bedroom. She can be seen removing money from the wallet."
The DVD clearly showed the nurse in an apartment "where she had no legitimate reason to be".
The daughter said she had checked the wallet and found $70 in it before she and her mother went to have dinner in the communal dining room.
On returning to the bedroom, they found that the money was missing from the wallet, which had been left beside the dressing table.
The nurse-manager of the village - its name and the resident's are suppressed - said the matter was reported to the police but the family had not wished to press charges.
The tribunal said the public had an expectation that nurses would be honest, trustworthy and could be relied on "not to steal from the weak and vulnerable patients in their care".
The nurse's actions were a significant breach of trust and likely to discredit nursing.
The tribunal did not de-register her and suspended her for only a short period to reflect that it was not a large sum of money "and her own difficult circumstances".
Her lawyer, Christina Bryant, said Ms Tameifuna could not afford a fine or costs. She should be rehabilitated because of her commitment to nursing and because the incident was out of character.
