Nurse Abha Kumar banned after dying bachelor left her $1 million estate
A Melbourne nurse who controversially pocketed more than$1 million from a “vulnerable” dying bachelor, has been banned from practising — but won’t be forced into handing the money back.
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A Melbourne aged care nurse has been barred from practice after she was controversially left a $1 million windfall from a dying bachelor.
Lionel Cox, 92, signed over his entire estate to Abha Kumar just weeks after being admitted to respite care at Cambridge House, Collingwood, in 2015.
On the day he was admitted Ms Kumar, the nurse unit manager at the facility, was told he had no family and had not yet made a will.
She immediately started researching what was involved in the preparation of the will.
Several weeks after his admission Ms Kumar bought a will kit for Mr Cox and sat with him while he filled it out, leaving her his entire estate.
It was witnessed by two other staff members, but details of what was contained in the will were kept secret.
In breach of her own workplace policy Ms Kumar ordered colleagues to sign the will as witnesses.
She later lied to them about its contents, telling them Mr Cox had left his estate to distant relatives overseas.
Mr Cox died from natural causes 13 days after signing the will in which Ms Kumar was the sole beneficiary and executor of the estate, comprised almost entirely a million-dollar Fitzroy home.
The property later sold for $1,117,000.
Ms Kumar pocketed the money, as well as property worth almost $40,000.
She came under investigation after a complaint to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency by six of Mr Cox’s neighbours and friends.
The group expressed concern about the circumstances in which Mr Cox had come to make a will in favour Ms Kumar.
Their concerns included that other vulnerable residents not be at risk.
In a judgment handed down this week the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia banned Ms Kumar from practice for five years.
She is also banned from any involvmnet in the aged care sector.
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“Ms Kumar betrayed the trust of her employer, her colleagues and the community. We will never know what Mr Cox’s reasons were for making the will, but whatever his intentions, she also betrayed the trust every patient is entitled to have that a nurse will honour his or her ethical obligations in all their dealings with a patient, will not financially exploit a patient, and will not put self-interest first,” the board said.
“This is not a case where a nurse, unbeknownst to him or her, has been named as a beneficiary in a patient’s will.
“The conduct in this case constituted determined, goal-directed actions by Ms Kumar to ensure that Mr Cox — a vulnerable, elderly man in her care — made a will in her favour, and that no one knew he had done so until after he died.”