Times Of Swaziland: FAKE SICK NOTES AT HLATIKHULU GOVT HOSPITAL?

FAKE SICK NOTES AT HLATIKHULU GOVT HOSPITAL?
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 BY SIBUSISO ZWANE on 03/05/2019 04:14:00


MANZINI - Yet another government hospital has been fingered in the issuing of
sick notes, fraudulently.
This, after some textile factories noted that there was a widespread usage of
allegedly fraudulent sick notes among the workforce in the sector and most of
them were allegedly issued from the Hlatikhulu Government Hospital.
As a result, one of the textile companies; Tex Ray Group has approached the
office of the Director of Health Services for its intervention as the company
was among the most affected. The correspondence was written by the company’s
Human Resources (HR) Manager Gcina Mamba.
In its correspondence to the Ministry of Health, which is dated April 18, 2019,
the company said it was hoping to get assistance from the office of the director
in its quest to verify sick notes presented to the company by employees who were
alleged to have obtained these sick notes by fraudulent means at Hlatikhulu
Government Hospital.
The company said the sick notes were in its possession and while it was still
waiting for clarification on whether they were properly acquired or not, some
(of the sick dates) have been already paid to the employees according to the
law.
Mamba said the company had been receiving sick notes from the government
hospital which were alleged to have been acquired through fraudulent means.
Authentic
“The company has it in authority that some of the sick notes are not authentic
as one of our employees confessed to have obtained it through back door
means,” reads part of the letter from Tex Ray Group to the office of the
Director of Health. Thereafter, Mamba said the company instituted investigations
and the first trip to the government hospital was on April 3, 2019. He said in
their meeting with the hospital’s senior staff, they confirmed the allegations
investigated, as no signature appeared in the sick notes they brought for
confirmation was similar to the authentic signatures displayed in their office.
“However, their verbal confirmation was not reduced to a written one,
something which disappointed us because we were hoping to get a written proof
from the hospital’s administration, just like other health centres who
cooperated with us,” Mamba said in the letter.