{"id":607836,"date":"2026-02-22T09:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T09:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/607836\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T09:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T09:35:15","slug":"third-mental-health-patient-absconds-from-cumberland-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/607836\/","title":{"rendered":"Third mental health patient absconds from Cumberland Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another patient of a Sydney mental health hospital has absconded, days after two men escaped from the facility and later allegedly killed three people in separate incidents.<\/p>\n

NSW Police issued an appeal on Sunday to help locate 25-year-old Madan Pandey.<\/p>\n

He was last seen on Saturday morning about 9:30am leaving Cumberland Hospital at Westmead, wearing a black T-shirt with black shorts.<\/p>\n

\"Cumberland<\/p>\n

Police are appealing for help to locate Madan Pandey after he escaped from Cumberland Hospital. (ABC News: Timothy Ailwood)<\/p>\n

“When he could not be located or contacted, officers attached to Parramatta Police Area Command were notified and commenced inquiries into his whereabouts,” police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Police and family have concerns for his welfare.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He has been described as being of Middle Eastern\/Mediterranean appearance, with short black hair and full beard and moustache.<\/p>\n

Other escapes from the hospital<\/p>\n

The hospital is under a formal investigation after two patients who escaped from its care within 24 hours went on to allegedly cause three people\u2019s deaths.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Setefano Mooniai Leaaetoa<\/a>, 25, early last week allegedly stabbed three people on a busy shopping strip in Merrylands, killing one and critically injuring the others.<\/p>\n

Ten days earlier, he had been in mental health custody at Cumberland Hospital before escaping while being transferred to Westmead Hospital’s emergency department.<\/p>\n

High rate of escapes from Sydney mental health hospital<\/a><\/p>\n

Cumberland Hospital is under investigation after two patients who escaped from its care within 24 hours allegedly caused three people’s deaths.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a separate incident, Luke Peter Francis<\/a> is accused of causing a crash which killed a 60-year-old woman and her 84-year-old passenger at Camden on Saturday, February 14.<\/p>\n

Mr Francis had escaped from the same hospital one week before the incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is understood the 31-year-old allegedly threatened a nurse before taking an access card and absconding from the hospital.<\/p>\n

According to data provided to the ABC by NSW Health, patients are three times more likely to abscond from Cumberland Hospital than any other mental health unit in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On average, one patient absconds from an acute mental health unit in NSW every 4,348 days.<\/p>\n

At Cumberland Hospital, it happens every 1,333 days.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has seen Mr Pandey or knows of his whereabouts is urged to contact Parramatta Police Station or Crime Stoppers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another patient of a Sydney mental health hospital has absconded, days after two men escaped from the facility…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":607837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[261281,4740,1126,258725,50,258730,261280,13987],"class_list":{"0":"post-607836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-abscond","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-crime-stoppers","11":"tag-cumberland-hospital","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nsw-health","14":"tag-parramatta-police-station","15":"tag-patient"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116113606233083517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}