S'porean woman finds her name printed -- on mother's death certificate

After a mistake by a Tan Tock Seng Hospital employee, a 60-year-old female accountant found her name on the death certificate of her mother who had just passed away.

The accountant had registered the death certificate of her recently deceased 91-year-old mother on May 6, 2017, reports Lianhe Wanbao.

However a slip-up by the hospital administration saw her name printed on the death certificate instead. 

The accountant’s deceased mother was reportedly admitted into Tan Tock Seng Hospital on Mar 25, 2017.

During the processing of her admission, her six children discovered that their mother’s National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) was missing. 

The female accountant, the eldest daughter in the family, reported the loss to the police.

She said:

“We had a photocopy of our mother’s NRIC, mainly to verify her identity and to confirm her IC number.”

After her mother passed, the account and her 57-year-old brother were responsible for registering the death certificate.

The accountant explained:

“There were two pages on the report.

“The first page contained my information while the second page, my mother’s. 

“When the administrative personnel printed out the certificate, my brother discovered that my name was the printed instead of my mother’s!”

After the incident, the personnel quickly retrieved the certificate from the family and reprinted a new certificate, with the deceased’s name in place. 

When asked about the incident, a spokesperson for the hospital said that an employee had made a mistake, and the hospital expresses its most sincere apology to the affected family. 

Said the spokesperson:

“An employee mistakenly submitted the wrong information to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).

“Upon discovery, she informed the family of the mistake immediately, cancelled the death certificate, and reissued a new one. 

The spokesperson also said that the hospital had been keeping in touch with the family to rectify the situation:

“We are now in discussion with ICA on how we can improve the procedure.”