Susan Mutami Offered a Plate of Scrambled Eggs to Cover Up Death In Australian Nursing Home
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Susan Mutami Offered a Plate of Scrambled Eggs to Cover Up Death In Australian Nursing Home

Susan Mutami

Susan Mutami crashed social media in the past months, excitedly gushing out tonnes of detail about her doomed love relationship with Temba Mliswa and the Norton legislator’s business and political secrets.

It has since emerged that while working  as a nursing student in 2013 , was offered a plate of scrambled eggs at Arcare’s Hampstead nursing home in Maidstone, Australia to cover up the death of 76 year old Caterina Montalto.

Susan Mutami, a Zimbabwean immigrant was working in the high-care unit on the first floor at the nursing home as a junior carer saw where Caterina was found, claimed there had been a terrible accident. And, worse, a cover-up.

Her evidence is she opened up the blinds in the overlooking room and noticed “something pink” – Caterina’s pink jacket – in the pond.

They each alerted the downstairs staff to the person in the fountain and then Susan, went back to the window to watch. She said she could see and hear everything clearly.

“Mama, please stay with me”, Susan said she heard Ms Sanchez say, as she lifted her head from the pond.

At the end of her shift, Susan was disturbed to hear staff were told at handover Caterina had died of a heart attack and collapsed in the corridor.

She said she was earlier offered a plate of scrambled eggs, an uncommon gesture from an uncommonly friendly Ms Sandhu, who told her: “Anything that you saw don’t tell – don’t discuss it with anyone or even with other staff member.” (Ms Sandhu denied giving scrambled eggs to Susan.)

“From what Lea had told me, I felt like a cover-up was underway,” Susan told the Coroner.

There were at least 35 references to a cover-up in the inquest. That Caterina had died from a terrible accident was one thing.

That nobody gave the truth to the doctor was another.

Her death may never have been investigated if Susan hadn’t told authorities where Caterina was found.

She sought advice from a teacher at Careers Australia. She was advised to go to her union, the Australian Nurses Federation, and to report the matter to police and the Coroner.

When she arrived at work for her next shift, on Thursday June 2, instead of an offer for counselling , Susan was sacked. Ms Condon claimed she had breached confidentiality. She was only on probation and her trial was unsuccessful.

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Susan didn’t argue. She said “thankyou” as she took the termination letter. She called the ANF.

Before her matter made it to Fair Work Australia, she was given 16 weeks’ pay and advised by the ANF to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Susan has since been told by lawyers lost wages payments can’t buy a wrongly dismissed employee’s silence.

Susan immigrated to Australia with her family in 2007. After Caterina died she couldn’t concentrate.

She became depressed. She quit her nursing course and later took up a uni degree.

For two years she feels like nobody has believed her. She’s come foward so that people might know how Arcare tried to stop her talking.

“People didn’t take me seriously. I didn’t think this is what Australia was. I was taken advantage of because I was new and didn’t know my rights,” she says.

“But if it was my mum found in the situation Caterina was in, I would want to know the truth. That’s why I did what I did.”

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