Hospital takes steps to deal with fraud
Health Minister Dwayne Seymour and Health Services Authority CEO Lizzette Yearwood
(CNS): Almost three years after the former Health Services Authority board chair, Canover Watson, was convicted of massive fraud in the CarePay case, officials said in a press release that the HSA is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in all areas of its operations and had conducted an intensive three-day fraud training programme organised by KPMG. The programme comes at a time when the hospital is facing another scandal, this time involving the abuse of overtime by security staff, which is under investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Participants in the training included members of the board, senior leadership, section managers, supervisors and staff. According to the release, it covered areas such as fraud risk management and assessment, procurement fraud, asset misappropriation, organisational ethics, implementation of an effective whistleblowing programme and detecting and deterring conflicts of interest.
“The broad representation of board, management and staff in the training reflects our organisation’s rigorous efforts towards complete and consistent compliance with statutory requirements in the HSA law, internal organisational policies and other local laws,” said Chief Executive Officer Lizzette Yearwood. “We want to ensure that we conduct both business and patient care activities with the highest level of ethical behaviour.”
Although Yearwood escaped the CarePay scandal relatively unscathed, the hospital boss did face criticism, and during the trial it emerged that people had raised concerns to her about problems with the contract and concerns that things were not above board, but she had not responded.
Officials stated that the training programme had “better equipped employees to more readily identify, prevent or detect errors and potential fraudulent transactions and behaviours within the organisation”. The hospital also said that it would strengthen the existing internal controls within the HSA.
The Authority said it had implemented several initiatives over the years to strengthen and enforce adherence to ethical practices. These initiatives include establishing a compliance department, strengthening internal functions and implementing internal policies and controls aligned with the Public Finance Management Law, Procurement Law and Public Authorities Law, establishing clearly defined performance conduct at all levels of the organisation and stringent penalties for non-compliance.
“We understand that one of the most important element in the prevention of healthcare fraud, abuse and non-compliance is the proper training and education of employees. As such, we are proud to have taken this proactive and comprehensive approach that will not only enhance the business operations of the organisation, but most importantly will improve the protection our patients, their identity and their health information,” said Jonathan Tibbetts, the current HSA board chair.
Category: Crime, Crime Prevention
While the same jokers from the care pay scandal are still there?
Well I guess now every TING will be alright .;lolololololololoololo
so where are the mansions? central? south america?
2.09pm … and South Sound. What a mess.
Umm..why dont they answer 949 8600 after 5pm any more?? Woww
Don’t worry, Dwayne will clean up the slackness. We have faith!
In Jon Jon we trust!
sarkie!!
Well that took a while…guess there were a few more frauds there to wrap up.
The CEO of HSA and Chief Officer of Ministry of Health should have been fired for their roles in the Carepay trial.
The HSA and Ministry of Health are still a mess. The Chief Officer has seen it fit to award contracts to disqualified vendors going against recommendations of the board. This has been sanctioned at the highest levels.
In the Carepay case both failed to review the contract thoroughly yet seemed to approve the course of actions taken. They were supposed to be the checks and balance in the system but did not perform at the standard senior staff. The political protection they received particularly from the Deputy Governor and Premier proves it’s all about who you know and the exchange of favors. The only thing worse than management incompetence is systemic corruption.
Where is the HSA Board Chairman in all of this mess?
He seems to be an intelligent young man – so why is HSA such a mess? You can blame the CEO, blame the Chief Officer and blame the Ministry/Minister of Health – but somewhere along the line the fine, outstanding person from the Brac who is the Board Chairman, well he needs to accept some of the responsibility.
Mustang Sally!
4:54 pm he is busy raising the sir charge on the disel on the light bills when the diesel price did NOT go up in the Brac
Learn to spell and then check your facts. Surcharge. Diesel. And cheaper than ever before. But you could ask for that information if your knew how to spell.
Can’t spell so I doubt you can see the fuel “surcharges” have dropped. Enjoy your day.
Responsibility for cleaning up the mess? For putting money in the bank? For paying staff appropriately? For hiring more Caymanians than ever before? For updating old equipment? For training staff? What else would you like him to take responsibility for?
Let’s see, who canceled the care pay contract? That’s right, the chairman. Within 6 months of being chairman, the carepay contract was canceled. Do some research and have some sense.
2:42 pure sour grapes. Thank you HSA for conducting this training. We are finally seeing the zero tolerance for corruption that we have been asking for.
You complain because someone didn’t agree with a recommendation…what is wrong with that?
I instruct ( not recommend) that you stop with your personal attacks on Caymanians.
I instruct! Really? To a completely anonymous poster. Wow. You must have psychic powers along with your undisclosed authority to order others around – or you could just be a self important delusional twat.
911. Sorry all fake old news. The person responsible went to prison.
I think this is commendable! Well done HSA
Yeah 1.30 pm that whole training programme was a huge load of BS and a ceremonial closing of the stable door after the horse had bolted.
To be fair, there are still horses left
To 11.14 am I would not say “Neeiiighhh”!! Gotta laugh!
You can’t train people to be honest. That’s innate.
How is the bad debt collection going ?
LOL
Sending clients bills for amounts already paid by the insurance companies is fraud.
Or incompetence – it’s hard to tell which is which – with some govn’t institutions.
“…establishing clearly defined performance conduct at all levels of the organisation and stringent penalties for non-compliance.”
I guess that they have not bothered to read the research that proves “rewards”, work much better than “penalties”.
The problem with the “reward” system is that there could always be a bigger payout, right? And if being dishonest pays more and people are of that mindset, they reward isn’t going to be sweet enough. To a degree people just need to be ethical and upstanding citizens. Unfortunately we are living in a society where too many people are out for whatever they can get.
Hence all the fraud