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Kenyatta National Hospital is struggling to recover Sh6.5 billion owed by patients.
According to a latest report by the Ministry of Health, the hospital cannot trace patients who disappeared before clearing their medical bills.
The Health Sector Working Group Report released this month indicates that Kenya's largest referral hospital could not collect Sh741 million from patients in the financial year 2013/14.
The hospital also lost Sh557 million in 2014/15, Sh624 million in 2015/16 and Sh658 million in 2016/17 through unpaid debts.
“Efforts to collect this category of accounts receivables has not yielded much, as contact information these patients provide in most cases is not correct,” reads the report in part.
The hospital has on several occasions detained patients and bodies over pending bills. Agreements reached with patients’ families on payment modes have regulatory been broken.
“These medical bills have accumulated to Sh6.5 billion as at June 30, 2018. Annual provision for such debtors is made in the hospital accounts as bad and doubtful debts and the same has been included under other recurrent expenses,” the report states.
A similar situation is replicated at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
“Each year, the hospital experiences uncollectible bills from indigent clients amounting to Sh300 million. This negatively impacts on the Hospital ability to meet its obligation to suppliers of goods and services leading to pending bills,” states the report.
The Ministry of Health is now appealing to Treasury to set aside a budget to cushion the two facilities from incurring further losses.
The report notes that despite its dilapidated and, in some cases, obsolete equipment, KNH is yet to be allocated any cash specifically for modernisation.
According to the report, the hospital conducted 48 open heart surgeries in 2015/16, 61 surgeries in 2016/17 and 14 surgeries in 2017/18.
“The drop was due to breakdown of the heart and lung machine and industrial action by doctors,” states the report.
In the same period, the number of renal transplants reduced from 12 in 2015/16 to nine in 2017/18 due to a fall in organ donors.
On average, KNH attends to over 560,000 patients.
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