Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) is one of our top hospitals and has played a pivotal role in our nation’s fight against Covid-19.
However, due to a clerical error, the hospital continued to credit an ex-staff’s salary to her bank account for more than a year after she was terminated.
On Thursday (10 Dec), the former healthcare assistant pleaded guilty to dishonestly removing property and cheating hospital staff.
Over the course of 17 months between Aug 2018 and Dec 2019, the 25-year-old lady received over $32,000 in monthly salaries to her bank account from TTSH.
The strange part? She no longer held a job there.
On Thursday (10 Dec), she pleaded guilty to 1 count of dishonest concealment of property involving more than $22,000, reported The Straits Times (ST).
The ex-healthcare assistant reportedly admitted to a cheating charge. She is also being considered for another count of dishonest concealment for the remaining amount of money and another cheating charge during her sentencing.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the lady had worked at TTSH as a healthcare assistant from Mar 2017 to Aug 2018.
There, she drew a monthly salary of $1,630 and was entitled to shift allowance.
On 16 and 17 Aug 2018, the former healthcare assistant failed to report for work and did not inform her supervisors or colleagues. She had not gone to work since.
With no reasonable excuse for her absence, TTSH assumed that she had voluntarily terminated her service.
Although her last day of employment was recorded as 17 Aug 2018, her details remained in the hospital’s human resource system which linked to the payroll system.
Source
As such, her salary continued to be credited into her POSB account every month, reported TODAY. This lasted more than a year.
Although the ex-staff was well aware of this mistake, she did not inform the hospital about it.
Instead, she intentionally took the money out of the account via bank transfers, cash withdrawals, and debit card deductions, reported CNA.
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On one visit to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, the lady even lied that she was a TTSH staff and hence was entitled to medical benefits.
TTSH ended up covering a portion of her bill as a ‘staff’. The remaining expenses were to be deducted from her ‘salary’.
Used over $32,000 from ‘salary’
Earlier this year on 9 Jan, a senior executive at TTSH’s human resource department noticed the mistake.
Eventually, this led to an internal investigation within the hospital.
Following that, a police report was lodged on 23 Jan, reported CNA.
The lady later admitted that she had used $32,241.76 that was wrongly credited into her account.
No restitution has been made thus far and no money was recovered from her POSB account. She did, however, return $29.60 in medical bills to the hospital.
She will be sentenced on 27 Jan 2021. For her offences, she faces up to 3 years’ jail and a fine.
Hospitals and their staff have had an extremely busy and challenging 2020.
It’s saddening to hear of such cases of dishonesty, especially in a year like this.
Nonetheless, we hope the lady learns her lesson that nothing in life comes free and eventually, you’d have to pay for it.
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Featured image adapted from Google Maps.
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