‘Graduate’ who was sacked for theft of drugs could be a fake
DETECTIVES investigating Victorino Chua found THREE different versions of his medical school record when they visited his home country of the Philippines.
And when they unearthed a certificate suggesting he had passed a required competency test a year into his nursing career, it shows the beaming smile of the successful student who sat the exam – except it doesn’t look like Chua.
Police have strong sus- picions the killer nurse’s qualifications are bogus and that he may have paid someone to sit the followup exam required of newly qualified nurses.
The young
Chua enrolled at the Metropolitan Medical Centre in Manila to study nursing, but he quit because he couldn’t afford the fees.
He then transferred to the dilapidated Galang Hospital to continue his studies. It would later go bust.
It’s from this institution that Chua claims to have earned a nursing degree.
Police found three distinct versions of the record of his achievement at both the Metropolitan Medical Centre and Galang Hospital, but each one is different.
One has no picture of Chua while a second has an unclear image and the third a good picture. Two of them are signed by one registrar while the third has another signature.
After he ‘graduated’ in 1989, he worked as a nurse in Manila through the 1990s.
It is understood he was sacked from one hospital he worked at after he was caught stealing prescription drugs.
He arrived in the UK in 2002 with a two-year work permit, later extended, and he worked at care homes in Warrington and Stockport before joining Stepping Hill Hospital as a staff nurse.
He brought his wife and daughter to live with him in Stockport, having a second daughter here in 2005, and he became a naturalised UK national.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) accepted him onto their register of nurses after checking his passport, evidence of his work history and photocopies of his dubious qualifications.
The standard of his nursing wasn’t a major cause for concern for his managers, although he was disciplined while working at Newlands Care home in Stockport after a bust-up with colleagues.
It later emerged he had embellished a testimonial he provided to his disciplinary hearing and he left the home under a cloud.
After his arrest in 2011, the NMC reviewed 11,500 nursing qualifications of Filipino nationals on their register. They found nothing untoward.
However, since then they have tightened the rules for overseas applicants who must now pass an online test before coming to the UK.
Then they must produce their actual certificates rather than photocopies, undergo a face-to-face interview at the NMC’s London offices and pass a competency test at the University of Northampton.
Jackie Smith, NMC chief executive, accepted the previous checks were inadequate – although she pointed out they were now ‘vastly different’.
She said: “He committed the most serious crimes. It’s awful, absolutely awful for the families involved and for the nursing profession.
“But these events are extremely rare, tragic and should not happen.
“If people are determined to commit the most serious crime, that’s what they will do whether they are a nurse, doctor or teacher. No system can prevent people commit-