Fake Fingers Fool Hospital Clock-in Scanner

Hospital doctors have been caught covering for absent colleagues by using fake silicone fingers with their prints to fool biometric scanners.

Footage shown on Brazilian television showed a doctor touching her finger to the device.

She then used two fake digits to do the same for colleagues, taking delivery of slips of paper indicating they had in fact clocked in to work.

That way it looked like there were more doctors on duty than just the one who had clocked in at the hospital in Ferraz de Vasconcelos, Sao Paulo.

Mayor Acir Fillo said there might be as many as 300 hospital employees who do not exist, except for fake fingers with their prints, but who get paid anyway.

The woman told police six other doctors were in on the scam.

"She says she was innocent because it is a condition they imposed on her to keep her job," said her lawyer, Celestino Gomes Antunes.

One television network alleged that it was the head of the emergency room that ran the scam and that his daughter had not worked at all in three years but got paid all the time.

So far five doctors have been suspended as part of the investigation.