Baycrest Hospital says it has fired or accepted resignations from some 150 staff members after a large benefits scam was discovered.
In a statement Wednesday night, the hospital located in North York, said concerns were raised about extended health care claimsby some employees last year as the hospital looked into a new provider network for employee benefits.
“As a result, we retained a third party to conduct an audit of our employee extended health benefits plan. This audit found irregularities,” the hospital said. “We then conducted a workplace investigation which found that a significant number of employees were misusing our benefits plan over the course of a number of years.”
The statement said the hospital is “extremely disappointed” by the findings and that it has moved to take action. The statement did not go into detail about how exactly the benefits were misused.
“As a result of the investigation thus far, approximately 150 people are no longer with our organization through a combination of terminations and resignations. The employees involved spanned a variety of job categories.”
The hospital says that it plans to prevent similar scams from occurring in the future by conducting additional audits and better educating staff.
“We want to assure our residents, patients and their families that we have a comprehensive plan in place to enable adequate staffing levels and maintain the quality of care we deliver,” the statement read.
There is no word so far about possible criminal charges.
