A former Hobart nurse who stole a patient’s bank card during a hospital shift and withdrew $1,000 from their account has been disqualified from nursing.
The Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT) found Alison Smith, 50, had engaged in professional misconduct on October 19.
It disqualified her from registering as a nurse or any other health practitioner. She cannot ask the tribunal for permission to reapply for three years.
Smith was working a late shift at the Hobart Repatriation General Hospital in April 2020 when she took the card from a patient’s wallet.
She withdrew $1,000 from the patient’s account at an ATM in Rosny and put the card back the next morning.
The tribunal said it was an “abuse of the trust and confidence placed in the respondent as a nurse”.
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia suspended Smith in August 2020. Over the next few years, she committed dozens more offences.
She punched a person in the face five times, gave police a false name and used gift cards to steal about $4,000 worth of goods.
She was also caught driving with illicit drugs in her system six times, often while suspended or unlicensed.
In 2024 she pleaded guilty to more than 60 offences, including the hospital theft, in the Hobart Magistrates Court. She received three suspended jail terms.
It was not her first conviction. In 2014 the nursing board cautioned her for not disclosing a Centrelink fraud conviction when she renewed her registration.
Smith surrendered her registration in December 2024. She did not take part in the tribunal case or attend any hearing.
Her lawyer had told the criminal court she had experienced burnout during COVID and a violent and coercive relationship, but she did not raise this with the tribunal.
TASCAT deputy president Richard Grueber said “her failure to engage at all with the proceeding speaks to a failure to take responsibility for the professional consequences of her offending”.
The tribunal also reprimanded Smith and banned her from providing any health service or calling herself a registered nurse until she is back on the register.
She must also pay the nursing board’s legal costs.
