Registered nurse Margaret Hissey suspended for stealing iPad from patient at Royal Adelaide Hospital

A senior nurse who stole a new iPad from one of her patients had an excuse ready for when police came knocking.

Registered nurse Margaret Hissey stole an iPad after a shift at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Picture: Matt Loxton

A senior nurse who stole a patient’s new iPad claimed it was an accident that happened because she was tired.

Margaret Hissey took the tablet home on the morning of July 6, 2017, after a night shift as a registered nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

It belonged to a male patient who had undergone a leg amputation and spent 62 days in the hospital.

The new device, worth about $500, had been gifted to the man the previous afternoon by his children.

A judgment published by South Australia’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal stated he woke to find it gone before he contacted his son “distressed”.

His son activated tracking software on the iPad that revealed it had been removed from the hospital and taken to Ms Hissey’s house.

Police were notified and found the iPad in a brown paper bag inside the home.

Ms Hissey, who had been asleep and was “groggy”, told officers she found the device on the floor near the man’s bed about 4am.

She said she had intended to put it on his table but accidentally put it in the paper bag then into her carry bag.

Ms Hissey said she discovered the iPad when she arrived home and planned on calling the hospital, but she forgot and instead went to sleep.

She later blamed her actions on fatigue.

“She suggested that she was sleep-deprived and this may have led to inadvertently packing the iPad with her belongings and taking it home,” the tribunal said.

She was charged with one count of theft, which was withdrawn at the request of the patient’s family after he died.

Ms Hissey was suspended and dismissed from work following the incident and has not been able to find secure work since.

The tribunal cancelled her registration and further disqualified her from applying to re-register until early next year.

“The conduct was clearly inconsistent with the respondent being a fit and proper person to be registered,” the tribunal said.

“Given our findings, and the lack of any adequate evidence as to insight or rehabilitation of character, we must conclude that the respondent remains unfit to be registered.”