Man jailed for misappropriating S$343,000 from Gleneagles Hospital, forging patients' signatures

SINGAPORE — A manager at Gleneagles Hospital misappropriated more than S$343,000 from his employer by amending patients' bills and pocketing their cash refunds, forging some patients' signatures in order to avoid detection.

Thomas Ng Eng How, 48, was on Tuesday (May 31) jailed for three years and nine months after pleading guilty to one amalgamated charge of criminal breach of trust by an employee and eight charges of forgery.

Another 30 similar charges were considered for sentencing.

The offences, which took place from 2016 to 2018, were only discovered through an extensive audit on Gleneagles Hospital and other facilities under Parkway Hospitals Singapore.

Auditors noticed a large amount of cash refunds issued by Gleneagles Hospital as a result of Ng's actions, and the hospital made a police report in January 2018.

As a business office manager, Ng was able to make changes to patients' bills in the hospital's computer system, although he was instructed to first obtain his superiors' authorisation.

During his employment, Ng learnt that the hospital had a practice of offering patients discounts or bill reductions by downgrading their hospital beds from time to time.

The discounts and reductions were given by amending the patient's bill. This could be done even after the bill had been fully paid and the patient discharged. The patient would then be given a cash refund.

Ng saw in this an opportunity to misappropriate cash belonging to the hospital, the court heard.

Each month, he would identify bills involving patients who were foreigners, that were not covered by any insurance, and that amounted to more than S$30,000.

He selected these patients because he thought that they were unlikely to return to Gleneagles Hospital as often as patients living here and were less likely to discover that cash refunds had been issued in their name.

After these patients had made full payment to the hospital and been discharged, Ng would amend their bills to reduce the final amounts or instruct his subordinates to do so. He would then process the cash refunds and keep them.

In some cases, Ng tried to avoid detection by forging the signatures of the patients on cash refund slips issued by the hospital, to give the impression that they had acknowledged receiving the payments.

He forged such signatures on 36 occasions from March 2017 to January 2018, for amounts ranging up to more than S$26,000.

Ng used the misappropriated money for his personal expenses, including gambling and buying a car.

He was arrested on Jan 12, 2018. About S$10,700 was recovered at the time, which was returned to Gleneagles Hospital.

Ng later made partial restitution of S$48,000 to the hospital in March 2018.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Dhiraj G Chainani sought at least four-and-a-half years' jail, arguing that Ng's offences took place over a significant period of time and were difficult to detect.

Ng abused the trust placed in him as a manager and "carefully adopted a modus operandi" to misappropriate the money, he added.

In sentencing, the judge also took into consideration Ng's remorse shown by his plea of guilt and partial restitution.

Ng could have been jailed up to 15 years and fined for committing criminal breach of trust as an employee.

The offence of forging a document purporting to acknowledge payment is also punishable with up to 15 years' jail and a fine. CNA