NEWS HR
September 24, 2018
A Rotorua nurse convicted of laundering more than $300,000 of drug money has had her registration cancelled. The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal last month made the decision to cancel Linda Olive Aldworth’s registration as a nurse on the basis of her criminal conviction. Aldworth was convicted of money laundering in October 2016 and was sentenced to 10.5 months home detention. Her Rotorua home and other assets were seized by police under the proceeds of crime act. The grandmother, who had been a nurse since 1974, was arrested at the conclusion of Operation Gandolf which targeted the activities of an organised criminal group which imported and distributed methamphetamine throughout New Zealand. Her husband, Mohamed Atta who was already in Rimutaka prison serving an unrelated sentence, was the ringleader of the group and organised to import drugs from a supplier in Thailand. Atta used cellphones smuggled in to prison to arrange the sale and charged a commission of $5000 per 100g of methamphetamine imported. Aldworth then received the money on behalf of her husband and distributed it to associates in New Zealand and family overseas. She also spent a significant amount buying a $24,000 car, a spa pool and a lounge suite. Over about 18 months she received more than $340,000 from unidentified sources – more than $3600 a week above her legitimate income – and operated 12 bank accounts, two of which were in her grandchildren’s names. She transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to family and associates in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and throughout New Zealand. Among those payments were 113 transactions worth $13,000 to 61 prisoners as well as payments to a Rimutaka prison guard who had been corrupted by Atta. She admitted distributing money for Atta when interviewed by police and pleaded guilty to the money laundering charge. At the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal hearing Aldworth contended she was a suitable candidate for rehabilitation and should not have her registration cancelled. She argued the offending was not deliberate but that she “naively closed her eyes to what was happening” but now accepted what she did was wrong. “I was living in a make-believe world that he was looking after me and loving me again, without thinking about where the money was coming from,” she told the tribunal. She said she was not aware the money had come from his involvement in a drug ring. Aldworth also contended the offending had come at a vulnerable period in her life, was out of character and did not endanger the safety of her patients. She apologised for her offending. But the tribunal agreed her offending was so serious the only appropriate penalty was cancellation. “The practitioner’s offending was so serious and sustained that we consider it is not tenable to permit the practitioner to retain registration. This is not so much to punish the practitioner but rather to ensure the protection of the public and maintain professional standards for the profession of nursing,” the tribunal concluded in their decision which was released today. Aldworth now works as a kitchen steward in a hotel and has lived in a rental with her daughter and grandchildren since her assets were seized.
September 20, 2018
Her husband was sending her money from prison, encouraging her to spend it or transfer it to others. Rotorua nurse Linda Olive Aldworth did – and the courts found she laundered almost $340,000 from Mohamed Atta over a year and a half. The Rotorua woman told a disciplinary tribunal she was “living in a make-believe world”, not thinking about where that cash came from. After her 2016 conviction, the Crown seized and sold her house, and she has now been barred from a return to nursing. Until then, her almost 40-year career had been unblemished, a recently-released New Zealand Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal decision said. However, the offending was “so serious and sustained” that she couldn’t remain registered. “Her misconduct goes to the heart of the practitioner’s integrity,” a decision said. Almost $342,000 from “unidentified sources” went into accounts Aldworth operated – including two in the names of her grandchildren – between January 2013 and October 2014. That was almost $3622 a week “over and above her legitimate income”, according to court documents. She once transferred $12,669 to one of Atta’s family members in Egypt, and also bought herself “items including a motor vehicle, a spa pool and a lounge suite”. Atta, it transpired, was the New Zealand ringleader of a methamphetamine ring uncovered by an 18-month investigation. Aldworth served ten-and-a-half months on home detention, had completed courses, and wanted to return to nursing, the tribunal heard. She apologised for her offences. Aldworth’s nursing registration was cancelled and she was formally censured. She now works in a hotel kitchen, boards with her daughter and grandchildren, and has no material assets, the decision said.
September 3, 2018
St John ambulance has apologised to a female patient and disciplined a paramedic who told her she had a throat infection and hadn’t drunk enough water when she actually had pneumonia. An internal investigation also found the staff member had made inappropriate comments about the woman’s anxious mother, which the ambulance service has labelled “extremely unprofessional, offensive and unwarranted”. Two St John paramedics were called to the woman’s East Auckland home in July 2017 after her mother called 111, saying her daughter was struggling to breathe. The woman said the male paramedic told her she had “brought this on herself for not drinking enough water”, after saying she didn’t like water much. “I was very upset, I was made to feel as though I was wasting his time and that neither me or my symptoms mattered. I was apparently just being dramatic,” the woman said. Her mother said the male paramedic diagnosed her daughter with a throat infection and made the comment that “there were already 600 patients at Middlemore ED just like her”. The mother said she was shocked as she was genuinely fearing for her daughter’s life at the time. “I could see she was terrified and he … wouldn’t help her,” the mother said. “My daughter then told me that while in the back of the ambulance [the male paramedic] said to his partner they should have been treating the mother and pointed to his head and alluded that I was unhinged.” The woman was diagnosed with pneumonia once she got to hospital and remained unwell for several months. Her mother laid a complaint with St John.
August 21, 2018
Support is rallying for a highly-valued Queenstown massage therapist facing deportation from New Zealand. Brazilian-born Maria De Souza, who has lived in NZ for almost 12 years, has been refused a work-to-residence visa by Immigration NZ. It cites concerns about her mental health status and long spells when she didn’t work full-time.
August 17, 2018
An Oamaru doctor infatuated with his intellectually-impaired patient has been sentenced to nine months’ home detention for molesting his victim across eight years. Stephen James Dawson, 60, appeared before Judge Joanna Maze in the Timaru District Court on Thursday, having pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a female over the age of 16 and doing an indecent act to a person of significant impairment. Judge Maze said from 2008 to 2016, Dawson breached the trust of the complainant by touching her breasts and hips, filming her topless, taking pictures of her wearing a new bra he bought her, and approaching her mother seeking permission to have sex with her. “The offending has been confined to this one victim,” Judge Maze said. “It seems clear you formed an infatuation with this victim.” Crown prosecutor Helen Bennett said the defendant, who worked as a general practitioner in Oamaru for 33 years, was aware his 46-year-old victim could not consent to sexual contact due to a mental age of 12-15. Dawson was convicted and sentenced to nine months’ home detention, and given his first strike under the three-strikes law.
August 17, 2018
On the surface, Dorothy Winifred Pearson was a dutiful citizen, helping her elderly neighbour with her groceries. But the 57-year-old South Dunedin resident was not what she seemed. As soon as Pearson discovered the PIN for the woman’s eftpos card, she “mercilessly” ripped her off, bleeding the victim’s accounts of more than $7000 over 10 months. When the woman, who suffers from mild dementia, discovered the funds were missing, she ended up at the police station watching footage of someone making a withdrawal from her account. She recognised the swindler immediately. “I don’t swear but I said, for the first time ever ‘that’s the bitch, Dorothy Pearson, and she lives right across the street from me’,” the victim said. The rare expletive “eased the pain” at the time, the committed churchgoer said. Pearson appeared in the Dunedin District Court this week after pleading guilty to 10 counts of using a document for a pecuniary advantage. The defendant, who had been a caregiver for 20 years before losing her job recently, had a clean criminal record and argued she should not be photographed in court because she was not a threat to the community. Judge Philip Connell, though, said the offending was significant and potential future employers should be forewarned about the woman’s ability to commit such fraud.
August 16, 2018
A Christchurch doctor was a short-term locum covering leave when he indecently assaulted a patient, the clinic at which the offending occurred confirms. Rakesh Kumar Chawdhry, 62, was in February jailed for four years and three months after a judge found him guilty of 11 charges of indecent assault and one of sexual violation against patients. He pleaded guilty to two new indecent assault charges on Friday in the Christchurch District Court. The charges were laid after several more more complainants came forward after seeing media coverage of Chawdhry’s trial last year. The new charges related to sexual health examinations by Chawdhry, who immigrated to New Zealand from India in 2003. One of the charges involved a 26-year-old man, who went to the Amberley Medical Centre for a sexually-transmitted infection (STI) check in 2011.
August 9, 2018
A man has been arrested after a lockdown incident at Hutt Hospital on Tuesday night. Police said they have arrested a 35-year-old Upper Hutt man who will appear in the Hutt Valley District Court today on “various charges including breach of bail”. Police said the hospital was locked down as “a precautionary measure while police investigated an alleged assault and potential threat towards a patient”.
