With close to a million Canadians requiring care at home, personal care workers are in an important position of trust.
But a Nova Scotia woman is speaking out and calling for better oversight after her sister was allegedly robbed in her own home.
Patty Naugler’s late sister, Kathy Newman, was diagnosed with ALS — a terminal nervous system disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — in 2023.
Last year, RCMP charged a woman the family had hired to care for Newman with fraud after her credit and debit cards were allegedly used without her knowledge.
“How could somebody do that? We opened her home for them to come in and treat her with compassion, empathy. And they didn’t,” said Naugler.
Newman had used a wheelchair and was eventually left unable to speak.
“The first thing she lost was (the use of) her hands and then her legs,” said Naugler.
“She was in the wheelchair, and she could only talk with the tablet. So they had a headset on, and on the screen she could move her head a little bit and go to the letters and say what she wanted to say.”
Naugler, a continuing care assistant herself, identified her sister’s need for around-the-clock support.
The family used a Facebook group in their search for a personal care worker. They hired one, and everything seemed to be going well at first, but then they began receiving phone calls from fraud departments.
Naugler and other family members ignored the calls at first because they believed they were fake.
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“Finally, my niece answered the phone and spoke with them,” Naugler said.
“She hung up and then called them back. And then that’s when they realized that somebody had gotten ahold of my sister’s debit card and two credit cards.”
Naugler says they checked Newman’s credit card accounts and found fraudulent purchases totaling $7,000.
Newman died last November at the age of 62. The following month, Brittany Ann Rawding, 30, was charged with three counts each of credit card theft and fraudulent credit card use.
Rawding was arraigned in Kentville Provincial Court on Tuesday.
The sisters’ story is not isolated. Three other personal care workers in Nova Scotia also face charges of fraud over $5,000 in a separate incident, after being accused of stealing from a woman with ALS they were assigned to help.
The three were arrested in December of last year and are scheduled to return to court on May 12.
According to the Amherst Police Department, the woman they were caring for had discovered “a large amount of money” missing from her bank account.
Friends set up a GoFundMe account for Bonnie Petton, who was identified as the fraud victim in this case, and said she had lost $58,000. Petton died earlier this month.
No regulatory board
Unlike physicians or nurses, continuing care assistants aren’t regulated in Nova Scotia. As with most other provinces, the profession only requires them to be registered.
But in these recent fraud cases, only one of the accused is registered and listed.
“The registry is not a regulatory body in any way. It’s not a place where you can file a complaint and have it investigated,” said Kimberly Carter, the president of ALS Society of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Carter says it means it’s largely up to families to be diligent and to practice prevention.
“Don’t have your debit card or their bank statement out, and you need to check your bank account on a weekly basis,” she said.
In a statement, Barbara Adams, the province’s minister of seniors and long-term care, said it was “distressing to hear about anyone being taken advantage of” and that the government was working with police and community organizations to educate Nova Scotians on how to protect themselves.
“Anyone who thinks they or someone they know is being abused or is a victim of theft should call the police immediately. This is criminal behaviour and needs to be referred to police as soon as possible,” wrote Adams.
Her department further said that Nova Scotians hiring their own caregiver are responsible for conducting criminal record, vulnerable sector and reference checks on the people they hire. Those who receive provincial funding to hire caregivers are given information and guidance on how to do so.
The province also encourages people to ask for references and to check them.
Naugler says she hopes that by speaking out about her sister’s experience, she can help raise awareness among those who rely on care workers. She’s also hoping for a change in how the profession is regulated.
“I think if you’re doing private care, there should be some kind of sector that you have to check in every six months to a year, you have to redo your criminal record check or anything,” she said.
“Just so this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”
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