The items are all personal property that patients gave hospital staff for safekeeping when they were warded, and which they did not pick up when they were discharged.

Even letters reminding them to collect their belongings have drawn no response.

As a last resort, the hospital placed an advertisement in The Straits Times on Wednesday, asking people to claim their possessions from its admissions office.

Each patient's name and his hospital registration or NRIC number were listed in the advertisement, which stated that the items could be claimed from Thursday. But no one has called so far.

Hospital operations executive Celeste Yeo said that if the items were not claimed by the end of this month, they would be valued and sold, and the money might be used to help needy patients.

Besides valuables, the items left behind include identity cards, bank cards and keys. All items are placed in special sealed envelopes, which cannot be opened by staff, for security reasons. The property has to be collected from the office. It cannot be returned by post in case the owner's address is no longer valid.

There are 370 envelopes waiting to be collected. They are all being stored in a cupboard in Madam Yeo's office. She said: "Most of the people listed in the advertisement were probably admitted through the accident and emergency department. Patients who come for a pre-planned operation are told not to bring any valuables, although some of them do. "A few may also be absconders who didn't pay their hospital bills."

Fewer belongings have been left behind since TTSH replaced the paper reminders with electronic ones last year, she said.

Now, when ward staff discharge a patient, the computer alerts them that he has personal items to be collected.