EXCLUSIVE
A heartless aged-care nurse laughed as she reduced a traumatised dementia patient to tears by bashing a therapy doll’s head against a table – knowing the elderly woman believed it was a real-life baby.
Sudiksha Ahuja then attempted to cover-up her brutal baby-killing ‘prank’ by trying to convince a junior colleague who witnessed the sick joke to lie about what she had seen.
NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal this week found the young enrolled nurse guilty of ‘callous and deplorable’ professional misconduct and is now facing calls to revoke her registration.
Despite the gravity of the findings, Ahuja – known as ‘Sudi’ to friends – insists she has been ‘too busy’ caring for vulnerable patients at her new job to read the judgement against her.
‘This is my first day back at work from holidays today actually,’ she told Daily Mail Australia when contacted at Pearl Home Care – Mornington Peninsula on Wednesday.
‘I haven’t had a chance to read the decision yet. I will do that later today if I have time. Please don’t call here again.’
Ahuja had been working as an enrolled nurse in the Residential Aged Care facility at the Junee Multipurpose Service centre when she pulled her cruel prank in late 2021.
Sudiksha Ahuja pretended to cave in a baby’s head by bashing a therapy doll’s face against a table – knowing that a distressed dementia patient watching on believed it was all real
The sick ‘baby-killing’ stunt unfolded while Ahuja was working at the Junee Multipurpose Service centre near Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina
The aged-care facility – about 30 minutes’ drive north of Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina – is home to about 30 elderly residents.
It provides ‘Doll Diversion Therapy’ for a number of its patients who are suffering from various stages of dementia.
‘Doll Diversion Therapy is used to help those women reminisce about the time they were mothers, and this assists to calm them thinking that they are holding their baby and looking after them,’ the Tribunal noted in its judgement on Monday.
It heard Ahuja was aware one of her patients – an 82-year-old suffering from advanced dementia – ‘believed that the dolls were real babies’ and that she liked to ‘dress them nicely and tuck them into bed’ at night.
According to an ‘incident report’ filed by a fellow nurse, ‘Sudi Ahuja was seen tormenting’ the patient after allegedly being egged on by a colleague in the centre’s dinning room a little after 3pm on December 9, 2021.
‘(The patient) loves to “take care” of the dolls in the dining room, as she believes they are babies and loves them,’ the colleague noted in her report.
‘The two staff were intentionally making (the patient) watch as they bashed the dolls’ head against the table.
‘They knew this would elicit a response from (the patient) who was clearly upset and distressed and asking them to stop repeatedly.
‘I asked them to stop three times, while they continued to do it and laugh at (the patient’s) response.’
Another witness recalled watching on in horror as Ahuja ‘grabbed the doll around the back of the neck… then walked over to the table in the dining room, lifted the doll up and slammed it hard, face first on the table.’
The patient was so traumatised by the callous act she began to cry, and later continued to visit the dining room in her nighty to check ‘the babies were safe’.
The elderly dementia patient believed the therapy doll was her real-life newborn baby
Despite a total of six witnesses giving evidence against her, Ahuja told the Tribunal they had all misread the situation.
Ahuja claimed it was the elderly dementia patient who had created a scene after accidentally dropping one of her cherished dolls on the ground.
The nurse insisted she had only been laughing in an attempt to cheer up the 82-year-old as she tried to fix the broken doll for her.
The Tribunal rejected Ahuja’s explanation and found she deliberately ‘banged’ the doll against the table for her own amusement, having worked at the home long enough to know her dementia patient ‘regarded the dolls as her babies’.
‘(Ahuja) did so knowing that (the patient) believe that the dolls were real babies and with the intention of eliciting a response,’ the Tribunal said its judgement.
‘(She) engaged in this conduct for the purpose of amusing herself and (her colleague) at the patient’s expense.
‘There is no doubt that (Ahuja) and (her colleague) were laughing during the conduct they were embarking on.
‘We do not accept that this laughing was to try and reassure (the patient) or lighten her mood, or cheer her up.
‘She thought the situation was humorous and was laughing at the patient’s distress.’
The Tribunal said Ahuja’s ‘attempt to collude’ with one of the witnesses by contacting her on Snapchat and unsuccessfully trying to convince her to lie about the incident to avoid responsibility ‘compounds her culpability’.
It found her guilty of both unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct.
Ahuja, who finished up at the Junee centre less than two months after the incident, moved interstate in the wake of the scandal and has been working as a case manager at the Pearl Home Care facility in the town of Mornington, about an hour south of Melbourne.
The nurse did not reply when asked whether her new employers – which boast ‘we treat ageing Australians with dignity and care’ on its website – were aware of the investigation into her conduct at her old workplace.
The Health Care Complaints Commission, which prosecuted Ahuja’s case, has asked for her nursing registration to be cancelled – and that she be banned from providing a health service – with a non-review period of between six and twelve months.
The Tribunal will determine an appropriate sentence following a further hearing on October 14.
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