Banned nurse Abha Kumar to pay nursing board’s legal costs after getting patient to sign over his estate to her
A nurse deemed a significant risk to vulnerable patients after she was busted financially exploiting a dying man in her care has been ordered to pay the nursing board’s legal costs.
Victoria
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A nurse who “enriched herself” more than $1 million by having a lonely, dying patient will his home to her, has been ordered to pay the legal costs of the nursing board which vigorously pursued the case.
Abha Kumar, who has been banned from nursing, still had the money she inherited from 92 year-old Lionel Cox, despite promising to donate it to charity, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal noted last week.
Mr Cox, who was frail and had no family of his own, signed over his entire estate to Ms Kumar just weeks after being admitted to Collingwood’s Cambridge House nursing home in 2015, where she was a nurse unit manager.
She had a staff member search his room for the key to his Fitzroy house before his dead body was even removed from the bed, VCAT heard.
In ordering Ms Kumar to pay the Nursing and Midwifery Board’s prosecution costs of $130,000, a senior VCAT panel said it was “fair and appropriate” it be compensated.
“The action by the board brought to light serious wrongdoing by Ms Kumar which, in the face of her denials … would otherwise have remained hidden … the context was the financial exploitation of a vulnerable elderly man in residential aged care,” it said.
“The action taken protected other vulnerable residents to whom Ms Kumar posed a serious risk.
“By her wrongdoing, Ms Kumar enriched herself by over one million dollars, a benefit she has retained against all ethical obligations of the nursing profession.”
VCAT recommended the matter be referred to the Supreme Court. In a hearing last September — after which Ms Kumar was banned from nursing for five years and prohibited from working in aged cared — it was told Mr Cox met Ms Kumar for the first time when he entered respite care in July 2015.
Ms Kumar learned Mr Cox did not have any friends or family but owned his home and had not made a will.
Within days of Mr Cox’s admission, Ms Kumar began researching ways for him to make a will and within weeks escorted him to his house to collect belongings and cash, VCAT was told.
Ms Kumar put his cash in her purse then, on July 27, 2015, she purchased a will kit.
On the same day, he made a handwritten will in her favour, witnessed — at her direction — by Cambridge House staff.
The will, which named Ms Kumar as executor and sole beneficiary of Mr Cox’s estate, was presented to witnesses folded over so only the attestation clause was visible.
“Proof of the allegations in this case relied upon the evidence of employees at Cambridge House who were in effect eyewitnesses … ,” VCAT said.
“For the staff involved, who had experienced distress or discomfort at what Ms Kumar had asked them to do, and whose perspective and recall had subsequently been questioned, the Board’s action and the Tribunal’s findings vindicated their concerns and their honesty. This is in the public interest.”
The board’s costs in prosecuting the case, which were “necessarily high”, would have to be paid out of public funds, including nurses’ registration fees, if Ms Kumar was not made pay, it said.
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