AHPRA reports a woman has been convicted for the second time for holding herself out as a registered nurse to her employer, staff and patients, becoming the first Australian sent to jail for pretending to be a registered health practitioner.
Alison Mibus, who has never been registered as a nurse, pleaded guilty to six charges relating to claiming to be a registered nurse. She was sentenced under the National Law to four months and 28 days imprisonment, to be suspended after serving one month. The ABC separately reports Mibus had also previously stolen $136, 290 from another workplace.
Mibus faced five charges of holding herself out as a registered nurse, and one charge of claiming to be qualified to practise as a nurse, in breach of section 116 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law 2009.
In January 2019 Mibus applied for a job at as practice manager at a South Australian medical clinic. In her application she falsely claimed to be a registered nurse with years of nursing experience. The position did not require the registration but the claim appears to have given her an advantage over other applicants.
During employment from March 2020 to September 2020 Mibus represented herself as a registered nurse in multiple emails to a range of recipients, including SA Health. One apparently misled colleague allowed Mibus to administer vaccinations to his parents and himself. AHPRA states that Mibus lied to colleagues that she was undertaking clinical nursing shifts at another medical centre so that she could ‘maintain [my] registration'.
During an additional internal job application Mibus again falsely claimed to have nursing registration and qualifications. The deception was discovered after she resigned.
Mibus had previously been prosecuted by AHPRA for claiming to be a registered nurse, being sentenced in February 2020 on three counts of holding herself out to be a registered nurse by administering vaccines and treating patients while employed as a practice manager at a different medical centre during 2017. She was fined $10,500 for that offending. At the time the maximum penalty was a $30,000 fine. AHPRA notes that Australian jurisdictions apart from WA have increased the maximum penalty to a fine of $60,000, three years imprisonment, or both.
In 2016 the ABC reported anotherAdelaide woman had passed herself off as a registered nurse for five years.
Jennifer Anne Reed pleaded guilty to seven counts of deception by using the identity of a registered nurse to work at several aged care homes in South Australia between 2009 and 2014. Reed reportedly continued her offending in New South Wales until December 2014.
She had worked as the director of nursing for Moonta Health and Aged Care in 2014 and was responsible for administering "drugs of dependence" at Trevu House. She received wages of almost $350,000 over the five years.
Prosecutors said Reed's deception involved producing fake documents to secure work, including a false CV and references.
Reed was sentenced to four years for deception offences and given a non-parole term of 14 months. She also was ordered to pay almost $30,000 to the ATO for undeclared earnings.
