Hospital clerk dismissed for taking home a lost phone
A hospital clerk’s decision to take a lost cellphone home rather than leaving it in safekeeping at the hospital came at a high price after she was fired.
Sandra Opperman turned to the Cape Town Labour Court in a bid to have her dismissal overturned. But the court turned down her application, as the judge found she never explained why she took the phone in the first place.
Opperman was employed at the George Hospital in the Western Cape as an administrative clerk for 28 years before she was fired, and she had an unblemished employment record.
It was alleged that in March 2019, while she was performing her duties as an administrative clerk, a cellphone was placed by a worker of a delivery company in front of her in the admissions area.
It later emerged that the phone belonged to a Mr Wagenaar, who was at the time making a delivery to the George Hospital. It appeared that Wagenaar, during the process of his delivery, forgot his phone on Opperman’s desk.
The court was told that the hospital has specific procedures in place for lost items. This includes such property being placed in a safe for safekeeping and handed back to its rightful owner upon enquiry. Opperman did not follow this procedure but instead took the phone home.
The court heard that she later gave the cellphone to someone identified as Mr Malgas, who fetched it from her home. It is also not clear from the judgment whether the phone ever made its way to its rightful owner.
But Acting Judge A Banderker said Opperman could not give a reason as to why she took the cellphone from the hospital in the first place.
Following a disciplinary hearing, she was fired from the hospital, and she took the matter to arbitration, where she also did not succeed in getting her job back. She subsequently turned to the Labour Court to review and set aside the arbitration ruling.
Apart from not receiving any explanation as to why she broke her employer’s rules by taking a lost cellphone home, the court also slammed her application as it had been delayed for years.
Opperman did explain that she had experienced problems with her legal counsel, which dragged its heels in launching the proceedings, causing her to terminate their mandate.
However, Judge Banderker also pointed to other technical difficulties in her application. The judge commented that even if the court overlooked these challenges, there is little chance that Opperman will succeed in her review application, as the court is in the dark about her motives for taking the phone home.
