Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH)’s fanpage is being bombarded with negative comments on the handling of the case which involves one of its staff who have made a comment which many deem to be derogatory or hurtful towards Singaporeans.
Up to 2700 comments have been posted on the fanpage on the issue. Majority of the comments criticise and question the hospital of the way it is handling the case and how it is protecting the staff involved.
A comment by a person named, “Edz Ello” was shared online and showed him writing , “Now the Singaporeans are loosers in their own country, we take their jobs, their future, their women, and soon, we will evict all SG loosers out of their own country…”.
Angry individuals took to social media to voice their displeasure over the comment and started a body search for the said individual. It was earlier said that this person is a Filipino, working in Singapore.
After the person was identified by netizens to be working in TTSH and angry comments started to appear on the hospital’s facebook fanpage. The hospital subsequently said on its fanpage that the concerned staff is indeed one of its nurse and he had reported that his facebook account was being hacked.
While one might give a benefit of a doubt that “Edz Ello”‘s facebook had been hacked but netizens in various forums and social media platform have dug out older posts by “Edz Ello” which were somewhat similar in nature. Which brings up the question of whether was his account really hacked.
On its most recent post surrounding the issue, the hospital wrote,
“We have received feedback from concerned members of the public on inflammatory online posts allegedly made by one of our nursing staff. This is a serious matter. We are a public healthcare institution and we expect our staff to be respectful and professional. We do not condone behaviours or comments that are irresponsible and offensive, and will take the appropriate disciplinary action where necessary.
The Hospital and the nurse are cooperating fully with the police on this matter. The nurse is currently put on administrative duties, pending police investigations. We thank everyone for their concern and ask for patience for the investigation to take its due course.”
TOC has since contacted the police and TTSH on the issue. The police’s spokesperson have said that they are unable to verify if “Edz Ello” has indeed filed a police report as they would require the case number while TTSH has not replied questions about the case number supposedly filed their nurse and if they have a copy of the police report.
This is not the first time that the hospital faced such negative opinion from members of the public.
In June 2014, TTSH announced that it terminated its patient coordinator, Roy Ngerng Yi Ling’s contract with the hospital.
The hospital wrote, “TTSH has terminated its contract with Mr Roy Ngerng with immediate effect because of conduct incompatible with the values and standards expected of employees, and for misusing working time, hospital computers and facilities for personal pursuits”
Ngerng was employed as a patient coordinator at the Communicable Disease Centre in TTSH for two years and was involved in the defamation suit involving Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The hospital also said in its press release that Ngerng’s recent public actions and conduct have caused the hospital grave concern.
It said, “Mr Ngerng’s conduct was incompatible with the values and standards we expect of our employees. While our staff are free to pursue their personal interests outside work, they must conduct themselves properly, honourably and with integrity. In particular, they cannot defame someone else without basis, which essentially means knowingly stating a falsehood to the public.”
Many viewed the dismissal of Roy Ngerng as a political move to penalise his criticism against the government’s policies and contrasted the actions by the hospital on Roy’s case with the current incident.
No political leaders has expressed their comment on the issue yet.
