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Hospitals are being targeted by members of the public stealing vital medical equipment from front line workers, according to doctors, nurses and medical workers.

News.com.au have been told masks, sanitiser and medication have been taken from wards at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick and other hospitals in the Sydney area in recent weeks. An alleged theft from the Intensive Care Unit at the Sydney Children’s Hospital was caught on camera, news.com.au understands.

Numerous other hospital staff have shared their anxieties about equipment on social media, saying after an “incredible quantity” of thefts, some hospitals have had to take on measures to protect themselves from the public.

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Hospitals around Sydney are now padlocking away their personal protective equipment (PPE) and decanting their hand sanitisers so they’re only ever a third full.

One nurse said they’ve had whole hand sanitiser stations taken, and others said their smaller bottles of sanitiser have been reduced in number, and are being kept in high visibility locations to reduce the theft.

Others said they’re figuring out where to spend their own cash to buy supplies in the eventuality their own hospital is stripped of what they need to provide services.

Another worker from Sydney Children’s Hospital, in Randwick in NSW, said a woman was caught on camera stealing masks and hand sanitiser from the children’s Intensive Care Unit.

NSW Police told news.com.au they couldn’t comment on the matter.

One health worker from Blacktown Emergency Department said a colleague working in a COVID-19 testing station turned her back while in her testing kiosk, and turned around to find members of the public had stolen all her masks.

People had begun “panicking and acting like headless chickens”, the registered nurse wrote on Facebook yesterday.

In Nepean Hospital, a nurse said in Facebook posts the staff have all been instructed to wear PPE from Monday onwards, and their equipment is being padlocked away to prevent future theft.

PPE, including surgical and protective face masks, are difficult to come by the world over, but are most vital for healthcare workers, who risk being repeatedly exposed to people who have been infected with the coronavirus.



Comments from staff saying they work at Mt Druitt Hospital and St George Hospital in Kogarah in NSW said they’ve also been targeted by repeated instances of theft.

A worker from St George Hospital, in Kogarah, in Sydney’s south, said they’ve had such an “incredible” number of thefts and have had to start keeping hand sanitisers in highly visible areas of the hospital. The staff are also decanting their stocks a small amount at a time to control their losses.

Others have written shocking posts about the ongoing theft of hand sanitiser, masks, gowns and toilet paper being taken from wards across the country.

Another worker from the Emergency Department at St George Hospital said the hospital had experienced an “incredible quantity” of thefts. He called it an appalling problem that “genuinely is distressing to myself to an uncomfortable degree”.

Others have written shocking posts about the ongoing theft of hand sanitiser, masks, gowns and toilet paper being taken from wards across the country.

Similar thefts have been reported in online posts at hospitals around the world, as panic buying and hoarding behaviour continues. Thousands of stolen respirator masks that had been stolen in Oregon, in the US, were later found for sale on Craigslist, according to reports from Fox35.

The Portland Police Bureau said in a statement they’d been searching for 25 boxes of stolen masks, with each box containing about 400 masks each.



News.com.au has contacted the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network but did not receive a response.