'Particularly offensive': Nurse stole from two dementia patients

A woman had her nursing registration cancelled after she stole bank cards from two patients with dementia at an aged care home and spent over $8000 of their money on herself.

Joyce Paran Mosca was convicted on two counts of dishonestly obtain property by deception and a single count of goods in personal custody suspected being stolen in the Yass Local Court last year.

Then on Friday (2 August), her health practitioner registration was cancelled and she was prohibited from providing health services for three years by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The tribunal said that by her own admission she “violated the trust placed in her to look after the most vulnerable people in our society”.

“In the circumstances, where concern for the elderly and their susceptibility to abuse (including financial abuse) is well known to be one of the highest risk factors deserving protective action in aged care, the practitioner’s conduct is particularly offensive,” the tribunal said.

It said while working as a care manager in an aged care facility in Yass, Mosca took the bank cards of two elderly residents and used them to make multiple purchases for herself, buying groceries, food, petrol and alcohol.

Both patients “were vulnerable because of their age and respective cognitive conditions”, the tribunal said. The first was in her 80s and had dementia while the second was in her 70s and had both dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

According to police, Mosca used the first patient’s bank card 61 times between May 2021 and December 2022, stealing a total of $5402. She also used the second patient’s card 116 times between September 2020 and August 2022, totalling $2996.

Most transactions were in Yass, in NSW, while the others were in the ACT.

Mosca, who pleaded guilty to her charges, was sentenced to an 18-month intensive corrections order and fined $450, then was taken to the tribunal by the Health Care Complaints Commission.

The tribunal said due to her “deceitful conduct over a significant period of time whilst employed in a position of trust and responsibility for the care of vulnerable elderly patients”, it was satisfied she was guilty of professional misconduct.

It was also satisfied her actions meant she was “unfit in the public interest to practise the profession of nursing” and she “poses a substantial risk to the health of members of the public as an unregistered nurse”.

Mosca, now aged 53, had come to Australia from the Philippines on a student visa and became a registered nurse in 2016.

She was suspended from her job during the investigation, then resigned in February 2023.

When the commission first contacted her about the allegations, she “begged for forgiveness for her actions”, the tribunal said.

“I cannot pretend that I didn’t know what I was doing the whole time I was using her card,” Mosca said about one patient.

“I got tempted to use the card more, and, shamefully, I did.

“I continued my disgusting behaviour and began using the card of [the second patient] … for groceries, petrol and foods, etc.”

A clinical psychologist, Sam Borenstein, thought she had been suffering from a mental health impairment which led to an ongoing disturbance of thought, mood, volition, perception and memory. This impaired her emotional wellbeing, judgment and behavioural choices.

Mosca was also ordered to pay the commission’s legal costs of the proceedings.