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A hospital worker who stole the credit card of a deceased patient will ask a judge on Monday not to convict him, because he committed the crime out of desperation after the financial stress of Covid-19. Jennifer Eder reports.
Mourning the death of her mother during lockdown was always going to be difficult for Trish Rawlings, but learning that a hospital worker stole from her mother’s bedside has proven to be a difficult pill to swallow.
Doris Follows, 90, appeared to be in good shape when Rawlings and her husband took a long-awaited vacation to Australia in February, interrupted to get home before the borders were closed.
Arriving in New Zealand on March 25, they briefly visited Follows in Koromiko, south of Picton, keeping their distance to respect self-quarantine requirements for overseas arrivals, Rawlings said.
Scott Hammond / Stuff
Koromiko residents Trish Rawlings, left, and her mother Doris Follows talk about the flooding along State Highway 1 in 2018.
“So we reached out to hug each other from afar, she standing on the back door step. We had a great talk that day, ”Rawlings said. “I called her every day after that. But on March 28, when I called, it sounded terrible. “
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Rawlings convinced her to call for help and was taken by ambulance to Wairau Hospital in Blenheim. Trapped in confinement, Rawlings was unable to visit.
“It was horrible that I couldn’t be with her when she needed me. I just thought he would be in the hospital for a couple of days … but it progressively got worse and worse and he passed away on the 29th. “
His sudden death was a shock, made more surreal by his inability to visit the hospital or hold a proper funeral. Relatives as far away as the UK were still waiting for border restrictions to be relaxed.
Stuff
Koromiko is a rural community about 6 miles south of Picton, on State Highway 1 in Marlborough.
“I wasn’t the only one going through this, it was happening all over New Zealand at the time. But it was horrible, it was a very emotional moment. “
About a month after Follows’s death, Rawlings was picking up his mother’s mail when he found a credit card bill, listing various purchases made in the previous weeks.
“I thought, ‘something strange is going on here.’ There’s no way it was Mom, looking at the dates of the transactions, and they were all in downtown Blenheim. Someone must have taken it. “
He called the bank and then the Blenheim police.
RICKY WILSON / THINGS
Blenheim police found CCTV footage of a hospital worker using a credit card at various stores.
Police charged a man employed at the hospital with 19 counts of theft related to the spending of Follows’ credit card and 13 related to another hospital patient. The man, who has provisional name deletion, admitted the charges in Blenheim District Court in July.
A police summary of the events said that after Follows’ death, the man had searched his belongings and taken his credit card. CCTV footage showed the man using the card 19 times over eight days, spending $ 773.38.
He went to Countdown 12 times over five days, spending up to $ 60 each time. She also used the card at a Z gas station, Pak’nSave Blenheim, and at UnichemPharmacy, and spent another $ 102 on Vodafone credit.
Police discovered that he had taken a credit card from another woman, who spent three nights in the hospital in May.
Brya Ingram / Stuff
Wairau Hospital in Blenheim, where the man is no longer employed.
The day after his admission, the man was registered filling his car with fuel and buying a pack of cigarettes with the card at another service station, using his loyalty card to obtain a discount.
He used the card at three fast food restaurants, two department stores, two supermarkets, a gas station, a cafe, and a dairy for six days, spending $ 431.04.
Rawlings was angry that a hospital worker had used his position to rob.
“How could anyone do that, especially to a person who had just died? That is very disrespectful. And because of the Covid thing, I wasn’t there with Mom, she was alone. I think I probably would have brought her bag home if she had been there. “
The rest of the hospital staff had been very professional, he said.
“They do an amazing job there and they can’t control what an employee does. You just hope that a person who works in a hospital has that ethic and that morality.
“That is what surprised me, that someone took the opportunity to rob someone who just passed away. It is awful.”
Ricky Wilson / Stuff
The hospital worker will seek discharge without conviction Monday in Blenheim District Court.
Rawlings decided not to meet the man through restorative justice, although there were some questions she would have asked him.
“Why did you think you could get away with it? Obviously, you haven’t thought about the damage it has caused you.
The hospital worker said Stuff he was under financial stress at the time and was not thinking clearly.
“I was not thinking clearly. He was really financially unstable … Everything was happening so fast. “
He said he was reluctant to ask his parents for help as they too were struggling, although his father still worked as a government employee. His brothers were also employed in the medical sector.
“It has been difficult, especially now that I am unemployed … But it is what it is, it is the consequences of my actions.”
He said he quit out of shame. Nelson Marlborough Health confirmed that he was no longer an employee.
“I’m looking for a job, whatever job is available online,” he said. “I’m thinking of moving to the North Island, just to start over … But I had to tell you all about this.”
He met the son of his other victim through restorative justice.
“I just cried and cried and cried, at first.”
He also wanted to apologize to Follows’ family, he said.
“Just sorry. I am very very sorry. I didn’t do it with the intention of hurting … I had reasons. But that doesn’t make it justifiable, and I’m really sorry.
“I couldn’t make ends meet. He was so stressed that he wasn’t thinking clearly at all. “
He was anxious before his sentencing Monday. He was seeking final name removal and a discharge without conviction to aid his career prospects.
“But that’s only 10 percent of my concern, it’s the deletion of names that concerns me the most. I am very concerned about my family … I am very protective of my children, so I asked for the deletion of names. I don’t want this to affect them at all.
“Three months I haven’t slept well, just worrying about what’s going to happen in the future.”
Scott Hammond / Stuff
Trish Rawlings says reading her parents’ journals has helped her through six dark months.
Rawlings said she accepted the man’s apology, but was skeptical.
“He’s obviously very sorry, but I don’t know what he thought would happen. If he was short of money, why was he wasting it on things like take-out and cigarettes?
And the fact that he did it again, and used the cards multiple times. Didn’t you worry after the first time? Didn’t you wonder then what the ramifications would be?
“If you are in a situation where money is tight, I suppose they can pressure you to do certain things. But the lifestyle they had, a couple of good cars, was it really that tight? I guess they lived beyond their means.
“He should have sat down with his family to tighten his belt.”
Rawlings would be at sentencing Monday and expected to be sentenced to stop working in hospitals again.
“I am defending my mother, because she is not here to speak her mind about it, but also to all the other elderly and vulnerable people with whom, hopefully, he will never be in contact again. If I would do it again, who knows. I hope not.”
