Staff at Italian hospital suspected of shirking on grand scale

ROME (Reuters) - Doctors and nurses are among 94 hospital workers from Naples who have been placed under investigation on suspicion of repeatedly skipping work, police said on Friday. One supervisor at the Loreto Mare hospital was instead found working as a chef in a hotel, while an on-duty doctor was spotted playing tennis and going shopping. Two health workers were caught clocking in 20 colleagues each day to make it look like they were on the job. Police said 55 of the suspects had been placed under house arrest. There was no immediate comment from the hospital. In a bid to tackle shirkers in the notoriously inefficient public sector, the government signed into law last year a measure to immediately suspend people caught dodging work, pending an investigation into whether they should then be fired. Managers who fail to comply with the new rules risk being fired themselves. (Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)