Commission on Audit unveils scam at VMMC

THE Commission on Audit (COA) is seeking full disclosure of the intravenous training ( IVT) seminar conducted by the Veterans Memorial Medical Center ( VMMC) after the agency found out that the hospital did not declare the P7.8 million it collected from trainee nurses.

COA auditors said that the hospital issued receipts amounting to P459,800. The hospital claimed that it collected a training fee of P150 and P200 from 2,455 nurses who attended the VMMC’s IVT seminar from January to April 2011 and from May to December 2011, respectively.

However, when auditors interviewed the trainee-nurses, they discovered that the VMMC Nursing Education Section charged each of the nurses P3,200.

An “ordinary provisional or temporary receipt” was issued for the P3,000 and a separate official receipt for the P200.

“Inquiry revealed that only P200 was remitted by the Nursing Education Section for this type of training and this is the only amount receipted and recorded as income of the hospital,” the Commission noted.

The Nursing Education Section said that they conducted the IVT seminar “on Sat- urdays and Sundays in another hospital.” However, the trainees denied this claim. “Interview with graduates of this training and documents, however, showed otherwise. The certificate of training issued showed that the IVT training program was conducted at the VMMC during working days,” COA said.

The VMMC management apologized and said that the issuance of two receipts was “an honest mistake.”

The COA said that the VMMC should stop the collection of seminar fees and stop issuing provisional receipts.

JOHN CONSTANTINE G. CORDON