Eight SA disability workers banned from providing NDIS care since 2019

Eight disability workers have been banned from providing care in South Australia – including three permanently. See the list.

Eight disability workers have been banned from providing care in South Australia, including three permanently - but the national watchdog will not reveal why.

However, Advertiser investigations show two of the banned workers are a former worker and director of Integrity Care SA, the organisation at the centre of the shocking neglect death of Annie Smith.

Another pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault of a teenage client after her crime was captured on CCTV.

An online register shows the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission imposed two bans in 2022, while another three workers were barred in 2021, two in 2020 and one in 2019.

The commission was set up in 2018 to oversee the burgeoning National Disability Insurance Scheme amid concerns unskilled operators would take advantage of government money flowing to clients.

Patricia Tirimacco has been permanently banned from providing care. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

It does not publish details of the events that led to a ban but carers can be barred if they breach the NDIS Act or code of conduct, are deemed “not suitable” to provide care or present “an immediate danger to the health, safety or wellbeing of a person with disability”.

Patricia Rosanna Tirimacco was banned from providing disability services for two years in February 2021 and later permanently barred in June 2022.

In November 2021, Tirimacco, of Magill, was sentenced to an eight-month prison term under house arrest for assaulting a non-verbal young man who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair for mobility.

CCTV footage from his home showed Tirimacco holding a sofa cushion over his face and hitting him to the side of the head.

Tirimacco’s former lawyer yesterday said she had “no public comment to make” on the ban.

Rosa Maione has been banned from work in the sector for five years. Picture: Sean Fewster

Amy-June Collins has been permanently banned. Picture: Facebook

The Commission has also banned former Integrity Care SA director Amy-June Collins and employee Rosa Maione.

Maione pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter over Ms Smith’s April 2020 death and was sentenced in March 2022 to a five-year three-month non-parole period.

She was banned from working as a disability carer for five years in December 2020.

Collins has been charged with criminal neglect causing death, failing to comply with a health and safety duty of care and exposing Ms Smith to a risk of death, serious injury or illness.

She is yet to plead to the charges. She was banned as a carer permanently in June 2021.

The Advertiser sought comment from Collin’s lawyer.

Integrity Care SA was shut down in August, 2020.

Other carers to be banned are:

■ Habonimana Nzokila, of Salisbury, banned for three years in April 2022.

■ Nicholas, of Craigmore, banned for three years in September 2021.

■ Rui Wang, of Mitchell Park, banned for two years in May 2021.

■ Michael Edgar Feast, of Magill, banned for two years in December 2020.

■ Naushad Rayani, of Modbury Heights, banned for two years in August 2019, permanently banned in March 2020.

Originally published as Eight SA disability workers banned from providing NDIS care since 2019