Geelong Advertiser

Fresh pain for mum over scripts

- GREG DUNDAS

had given up hope,” Ms Naben said. “I never thought that I would ever be healthy again.”

The Geelong chief executive of the East Timor Hearts Fund, Stuart Thomson, said the initiative­s, which helped 11 patients last year, extended beyond healing the individual.

“Our mission is that we mend broken hearts. Bete’s got a husband and three children, so in some way we’re kind of mending their hearts as well through not having a mum or pardner die from causes that shouldn’t happen,” Mr Thomson said.

“Having worked in developing countries, what makes the difference with this is people can feel a sense of hope or confidence they can invest in themselves and their communitie­s.

“Now Bete will go on and be a productive person in her community and be a great mum and an inspiratio­n. It’s all those things beyond the great, tangible thing of knowing she’s alive and having a good life now.” A NEWCOMB mother falsified letters from Geelong doctors so she could buy more than 400 painkillin­g tablets without a prescripti­on.

Elizabeth Thompson, 33, pleaded guilty to five charges, including multiple counts of making a false document, in Geelong Magistrate­s’ Court yesterday.

The court heard Thompson committed the offences between June and September last year after earlier becoming reliant on the prescribed painkiller anamorph to deal with health issues.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie said the offences were premeditat­ed and planned, and possibly had ramificati­ons for the GPs whose names she had used.

However, the magistrate agreed with the defence submission not to impose a conviction on the first-time offender.

“Not only have you sullied your own reputation, but their (the doctors’) reputation­s were probably called into question as well,” Ms McGarvie said.

Thompson $1500. was fined

 ?? Picture: PETER RISTEVSKI ?? NEW LIFE: Bete Naben has come a long way since her last visit to Geelong (inset) for open heart surgery.
Picture: PETER RISTEVSKI NEW LIFE: Bete Naben has come a long way since her last visit to Geelong (inset) for open heart surgery.

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