Kenya’s largest regional referral hospital, Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) lost a whopping 47 million shillings to cybercrime for the financial year that ended June 2024. About 11 employees from the facility are said to have orchestrated the looting.
The 11 have since been fired and the hospital says 16 million shillings were recovered from them. It says it has forwarded the matter to the Public Service Commission (PSC) and other investigating bodies to further look into the matter with the hope of recovering the remaining cash.
The revelation by the hospital came a few months after the Public Service Commission (PSC) revealed that KNH had lost at least 517 million shillings to fraud. The hospital, however, “clarified” and said that it “only lost 47 million shillings to cybercrime.”
Related Content: Jubilee Health Insurance Launches Its First Center of Excellence For Agents
“The 11 suspects involved in the loss of the 47 million shillings were apprehended and the matters are already before the courts. We are cooperating fully to ensure that we get to the bottom of this,” said the CEO of KNH Evanson Kamuri who said that all the processes are being followed.
Kenya’s Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has been auditing the payment systems of Kenyatta National Hospital after it was revealed that the facility was losing millions of shillings to fraudsters and unexplained payments, leading to some of the serving grinding to a halt.
A few weeks ago, the facility was at the center of the storm when patients stormed the Ministry of Health offices to air their frustrations over the inability to access the Social Health Authority (SHA) services because “the systems were down.” This escalated to worse when one of the patients who led the protests was arrested at a separate health facility.
Related Content: Why Kenyans Should Embrace Health Insurance With Flexible Premiums
