Friday, 21 April 2023

South Wales Scam

Another tale of South Wales strangeness, and non-medical misconduct ....

Naughty Nurse Nicola Bartlett In Happier Times
Naughty Nurse ...

Nicola Bartlett, a nurse at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital (that's not typo ... just evidence why no one really speaks Welsh anymore), near Bargoed, and the Royal Gwent Hospital, was struck off, after being found to have been lying, in an insurance claim to try and gain £1,350 (many reports say £16,764, but a local newspaper carried a later correction saying £1,350), in a cash for car crash insurance scam.

She had tried to claim that her car had been hit by another, in an accident which she said had also left her injured, and had left her car as a 'write off'. However the scam was exposed after insurance investigators found that the garage that had declared the car as a 'right off,' was in fact deliberately smashing the cars with a forklift truck to simulate car crash damage. The amount of money she hoped to have gained or claimed, if truly only £1,350, seems a stupidly small amount to risk a career over.

In all, the 'Easifix' garage in Newport, helped stage 28 fraudulent crashes to collect pay-outs totalling £750,000 between 2009 and 2011. But the fraudsters were caught out by their own CCTV cameras showing a Land Rover being deliberately driven into a forklift truck before a claim was made.

Ms Bartlet was sentenced to 'nine months’ imprisonment (suspended for two years) for her insurance claim. She was sacked from her job with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, and suspended from nursing. ... But then, in January 2018, she was reportedly given an immediate jail sentence of 12 months after being convicted of a further crash scam bid, involving her father being in hospital for 'injuries' from another bogus crash ... apparently she had not learned any lessons.

She was then reportedly banned from nursing for life, but apparently she can reapply in five years (many reports simply say for 'life'. but again a local newspaper carried a later correction saying she can reapply for her licence in 5 years) .... So why was I interested in this tale of small time fraud?

Well it was the inconsistency of these medical bans that I thought was very striking.

You can kill someone 'accidentally' in a medical procedure, and get a temporary suspension from work with retraining if necessary. You can sexually assault a colleague, or a patient, and the medical profession will often try to let you practise again (if the police haven't prosecuted) .... but a private insurance scam or two, with no medical malpractice involved, and you are instantly banned for at least five years. It seems that the lower down the medical tree you are, the harsher the punishments.

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