EXCLUSIVE
A callous nurse has been summarily dismissed from caring for nursing home residents after Daily Mail Australia readers notified her new boss of her dark past.
Sudiksha Ahuja had been entrusted with caring for dementia patients at a nursing home in Junee, just outside Wagga Wagga in Riverina, New South Wales, in late 2021, when she pulled off one of the cruelest “pranks” imaginable.
After being egged on by a colleague, the young nurse pretended to knock a baby’s head off by smashing a therapy dummy’s face into a table, knowing full well that a frail dementia patient watching her believed it was a real newborn.
Ahuja, known as ‘Sudi’ to her friends, laughed as the brutal ‘prank’ of baby killing reduced her traumatised patient to tears.
Although she left the New South Wales nursing home in the wake of the scandal, the registered nurse simply moved to another state and took up another job working with vulnerable elderly residents at an aged care facility on the Mornington Peninsula.
But this week her past caught up with her.
Daily Mail Australia revealed on Thursday morning that the registered nurse had been found guilty of “cruel and deplorable” professional misconduct due to her disruptive behaviour.
By Thursday afternoon, I no longer had a job in the elderly care sector.
Sudiksha Ahuja pretended to have smashed a baby’s head into pieces by slamming a therapy doll’s face into a table, knowing that a distressed dementia patient watching believed it was all real.
The sickening act of ‘baby murder’ unfolded while Ahuja was working at the Junee Multi-Purpose Services Centre near Wagga Wagga in Riverina, New South Wales.
She was sacked after Daily Mail Australia readers alerted Ahuja’s bosses. Pearl Home Care in the town of Mornington, approximately one hour’s drive south of Melbourne.
“As a Mornington resident, I can tell you that we do not take kindly to abuse of our large population of elderly residents,” one reader told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I texted Pearl Aged Care at 6:30am and thanks to their help and that of many, many other good people, this heartless nurse has been made redundant.
“I have worked in aged care and have contacted a number of senior nurses about this issue this morning, and I can tell you with confidence that Sudiksha Ahuja will not be finding further work in Mornington.”
The home has sent messages to concerned members of the close-knit coastal community, saying: “She has been expelled from our organisation… we were not aware of that…”
Pearl Home Care informed concerned readers of the Daily Mail Australia that it had fired Ahuja
The aged care facility, which prides itself on “treating elderly Australians with dignity and care”, has also removed Ahuja from its list of team members on its website.
The nursing home declined to comment on Ahuja’s dismissal when contacted by Daily Mail Australia, but confirmed that “she is no longer with the company”.
Local residents praised Pearl Home Care for its proactive and immediate response.
“We wanted to thank you for your article,” one of them said. “Hopefully you won’t keep jumping from one state to another.”
The New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal is now facing requests to bar Ahuja from working in the industry again.
The Health Care Complaints Commission has asked the court to revoke Ahuja’s registration, with a non-review period of between six and 12 months.
This comes after the court found her guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct on Monday.
Elderly dementia patient believed therapy doll was her real newborn baby
In its decision, the court found that Ahuja had deliberately smashed the therapy doll’s face into a dining room table at the Junee nursing home on December 9, 2001, knowing it would cause extreme distress to his 82-year-old patient.
“(Ahuja) did so knowing that (the patient) believed the dolls were real babies and with the intention of provoking a response,” the court said in its ruling.
‘(She) engaged in this conduct for the purpose of amusing herself and (her colleague) at the patient’s expense.
“She thought the situation was funny and laughed at the patient’s distress.”
The court said Ahuja’s “attempt to conspire” with one of the witnesses by contacting her on Snapchat and unsuccessfully trying to convince her to lie about the incident to avoid liability “increases his culpability.”
Despite the severity of the sentence, Ahuja told the Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday that she had been “too busy” to read the court’s decision.
The court will determine the appropriate sentence after a new hearing on October 14.