To think this really is the lowest of the low

[LoopyLou1981]

Just found out that someone has stolen one of the portable DVD players from the children’s ward at our local hospital.
What sort of a scumbag do you have to be to do that?! 😡

Tawdrylocalbrouhaha

^
I'm a beggar for bulldog clips.. Grrr..

Fish bucket man was filmed on CCTV confidently walking in, removing the lid of the tank, scooping around inside, and walking away.

Everyone assumed he was the fish man, as I suppose one would!

I've a drawer full of bulldog clips you can have halfwitpicker, in my office we only use them for clipping onto each other for a laugh.

I have seen someone putting a drip stand in their car at my hospital. What an earth were they planning to do with it. I walked up and said "oh dear you seem to have accidentally taken a drip stand" and they handed it back.

Wow this thread has made me so sad - I know people steal, but to steal from cancer wards, poorly kids and the people that are there helping you or saving your lives. Makes me feel sick :-(

As someone in the 10% that would never

Everyone thinks they're in the small minority that would buck the trend- they would never steal, they would never stand by and witness an assault but fail to call the police, they would not obey an order they knew to cause someone harm, they wouldn't look the other way when living under a government terrorising certain minority groups, etc etc etc. It's interesting that we're all so sure of what we would do, when time and time again history and studies suggest that we would not at all do what we think we would.

I'm pretty confident that most of us would not steal a charity box or a dvd from a children's ward or similar in most circumstances, and that people who do so generally are not doing so because they are in a "do this or my children starve" type scenario (which is about the only thing I can think of that might justify such an action).

(Not at all aimed at the person whose post I partially quoted, by the way, just a general observation.)

Those are some mad fish scooping skillz he must have. Takes me about 45 mins to scoop my goldfish out of his bowl (he’s a devious wee fucker right enough)

They have the same issue with the console games. What kind of shithead would steal a game meant for a bored child in hospital? Blows my freaking mind.

Happens all the time. It was always the thermometers that got nicked when I worked in paediatrics. We ended up having to chain them onto the blood pressure machines.

@DianaPrincessOfThemyscira you should! Actually Alderhey I’ve found is absolutely fabulous with keeping tabs on their consoles and games.
Kids need this stuff. Hospital can be a soul destroying place without some entertainment

I worked in a hospital just when flat screen monitors were coming in and highly desirable. People would pick them up and walk out with them in broad daylight. Maybe they were desperate but it doesn’t take much empathy to see that you’ve severely compromised patient care if none of the computers are accessible to clinicians.

I had a relative (long since gone) who worked in a hospital. She happily displayed towels on her washing line with 'HOSPITAL PROPERTY; emblazoned along the full length, in dark lettering. Her garden was seen easily from the neighbouring properties and her washing line was a shocking thing to behold. She had a house-full of other items stolen from the hospital, such as loo rolls (apparently the item that is stolen most often from business premises), pillows, bedding, scales, crockery and cutlery, trays, cloths and cleaning materials, kettle and toaster, storage containers etc. If it wasn't screwed down and she could hide it in her bag, she would take it.
The same woman stole from my parents and grandparents, including a very expensive gold chain, cash and an expensive pen. She would go on holiday with other family members and be found rifling through others' handbags and drinking their bottles of duty-free that were meant as gifts to be taken home. I can't even mention her worst action, as that is very unique and too outing.
She was just a greedy, scummy, despicable thief who had no morals and was very happy to take advantage of the fact that no-one EVER called her out on any of it.

But, if I was on the bones of my arse, had ran out of food bank vouchers, managed to convince myself that the NHS just have a big stock of the item anyway and can absorb the cost/factor thefts into their budget, knew I couldn't afford a birthday gift for my kid, or felt so horrifically unwell from heroin withdrawal my morals were so far out of sight I forgot I had them, who knows? Maybe I'd fall into the 80%. [...] although it's no excuse, I doubt anyone with enough money and a nice life with much to lose would steal those things. [...] So i try have a little empathy instead of jumping straight to 'how disgusting', we all know it's disgusting. Few people can look a little beyond that and at least contemplate why some people might do this.

Very compassionate and intelligent posts from LimonViola today. I've no doubt I'd fall into the 80% with enough pressure - wasn't sure until I read the post about stationery and remembered the last time I worked in a horrible office where stationery was unofficially considered compensation for the terrible atmosphere and low pay.

I understand theft - obviously don't condone it, but understand how greed and desperation can coincide when opportunity arises. But vandalism - eg smashing up a defibrillator - is just completely baffling. What on earth can you possibly think you're getting out of it?

HelptheTigers Sounds like we knew the same woman, or someone very similar.

Everything on the labour ward which isn’t tied down gets stolen.

Tens machines, sonic aids, the expensive in ear thermometers, TVs, someone stole a computer out the staff room once, staff handbags have had money taken out of them....door to the staff room is always propped open and right on the main corridor.....aromastreams.

Hands up I would probably fall in the 80% too.

But a hospital is one place I would never dream of!

I did take home a few bottles of pre made formula when I had Ds, but I had permission to take them. They happily gave over a good handful

crunchy , I'm torn between hoping that it's a different woman / thief and maintaining my anonymity, and hoping that it IS the same one and that there aren't more people as bad as she was!

Exactly sinceyouask. I think it would serve us all well to remember that with the right set of circumstances we could easily end up in the 80%!

We were on a med cruise... Apparently some light-fingered people bring spare suitcases to load up on fresh linen stolen from the maids ' trollies....

Of course the cost of this is passed on to everyone else...

Incredible... The brass neck of these people!

I guess it's part of the justification..' I've paid x for this holiday, therefore I deserve to take anything not nailed down'

Thanks MrsHathaway.

Yes I don't get needless vandalism either.

I wonder if it's a way of getting back at 'the system', maybe somebody who has been treated awfully by the NHS or a relative has, taking their anger out that way? Getting their own back. Or perhaps just the thrill of doing something so wrong for the sake of it.

So it's learned / expected behaviour?

Yes I think so.

My son's birth mum's husband used to take him out with his younger siblings and teach him how to shoplift by hiding things in the youngest's buggy. He considered this an important skill to learn.

Thankfully my son finds it abhorrent behaviour.

IamtheDevilsAvocado Reminds me of that scene in Friends where Ross steals the lamp as it's 'built into the cost of the room' then his bag explodes 😂

HelptheTigers The woman I knew - I dated her son when I when I was a teenager. When her kids turned 16, she took out credit in their names that she never paid back. So they all had terrible credit records before even leaving home.

crunchy, hmm, I have no idea. Her hometown began with H.

When my step brother and his wife had their first born he was 3 months prem (he sadly passed a month after birth) there was some questionable people on the prem ward, to a point where we were being warned by said parents and others to keep watch on belongings when we went to visit him. They were definitely junkies of some sort, and thats prob the reason why their baby was born prem. Some people just have no morals or shame, junkies or not and its a disgrace.