AFTER Paarl Hospital recently underwent a multi-million rand face-lift, so it may at first sight have a shiny nose, but further down, stinky toes.

This was revealed after various heads at the hospital recently rolled due to theft and fraud.

At least two pharmacy staff members have been suspended after almost R2,5 million went missing, as well as thousands of rands worth of medication. This medication was allegedly sold from one of the suspects’ homes.

And in the belly of the beast, a senior porter at the hospital’s mortuary, Norman Andrews, has been suspended, for allegedly taking money for storing bodies of deceased patients.

According to an insider, the porter conned various members of the public into paying him to have bodies stored at the hospital’s mortuary while they were either in the process of making funeral arrangements, or waiting for sufficient funds to have their loved ones buried.

According to a spokesperson of Drakenstein Municipality, if families are not able to afford a funeral for a deceased family member, the Municipality will see to a pauper’s funeral.

The Municipality makes use of a local funeral parlour to carry out this duty.

It is also alleged that hospital mortuary staff are paid kick-backs by local funeral parlours for contacting them first in case of a death.

Ethne Julies of the Department of Health confirmed that a full scale investigation as to these allegations were under way.

“The Department is currently following the necessary procedures to have disciplinary hearings regarding these matters. One employee has already been dismissed following a disciplinary hearing. All the said issues are currently under investigation.

“The department is serious about ridding itself of corrupt or fraudulent activities and truly value and encourage alerts from the public.

“In this instance these alerts from the public actually assisted us in taking action in some of the cases.”

Criminal charges may be laid at the outcome of the investigation.