About a hundred employees of a Neapolitan hospital (Italy) were arrested for unjustified absences. According to the police, a doctor was even often absent to go and play tennis.
Two years of investigation and hidden cameras have undermined a fraudulent system at theNeapolitan hospital “Loreto Mare” (Italy). In this city already plagued by the mafia, some employees passed the attendance badges of 94 comrades … absent.
Two social workers alone had twenty attendance cards which they passed through the time machines at the entrance to the hospital, while being in telephone contact with those absent. A total of 55 people – a neurologist, a gynecologist, nine radiology technicians, eighteen nurses, six administrative employees, nine handling technicians and eleven social workers – were assigned to their homes by the Naples prosecutor’s office.
Dishonest controllers
Among those absent were employees specifically responsible for monitoring staff attendance. Except that one of them was away to be a cook in a nearby inn, while another took advantage of these afternoons to go shopping. Better yet, a doctor would leave the hospital in a taxi during his working hours to go play tennis.
The cost of this fraud is estimated at 800,000 euros over 5 years. But France is not exempt from all reproach in the management of its health establishments. The Court of Auditors has indeed recently tackled the hospitals of Ajaccio (Corse-du-Sud) and Bastia (Haute-Corse). Their financial situation is compromised because of an increase in personnel costs. But without correlation with the increase in their activity, the report concluded.
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