• A financial department official at KNH confirmed the billing system was restored on Wednesday.
• The billing systems last broke in May last year for five days.
Image: Monicah Mwangi
Patients detained at Kenyatta National Hospital since Friday due to online billing system failure have been discharged.
The crash only affected the link between KNH and the National Hospital Insurance Fund. Close to 100 patients under NHIF could not be discharged.
"We have only been discharged today (Wednesday). The doctor had recommended our discharge on Friday," said Philister Kamau, whose two sons were admitted for skin contracture surgery.
A burn scar contracture is the tightening of the scar during and after healing of a deep burn wound at joints.
Another mother whose child was discharged urged the hospital to waive the Sh1,850 daily charge per patient incurred after discharge.
"They said we should pay for this money ourselves because NHIF would not cover it since we had already been discharged," Mary Owuor said.
A KNH finance department official said the billing system was restored yesterday.
"The backlog is being processed quickly so we don't keep patients waiting," he said.
The billing system last broke in May last year, for five days. The breakdown was triggered by a power outage in key departments.
It affected the provision of ICT services at billing, health information and cash points as well as some wards especially those not on standby generator.
Former head of communications Simon Ithae said they had then reverted to the manual system.
Patients who contacted NHIF were told the fund could not help until the link with KNH was restored.
“NHIF is taking longer since we have to do physical verification of the documents,” Ithae said.
ICU, theatres, Newborn Unit, labour ward, radiology, cancer treatment centre and renal unit were all on standby generator and were not affected last year.
KNH is the largest teaching and referral hospital in the East and Central Africa with a bed capacity of 2,000. It serves over 500,000 outpatients and 70,000 inpatients every year. It has a workforce of 4,600.
Due to the inability of many of its patients to pay for services and the increased cost of providing healthcare, the hospital has faced challenges in adopting new technologies, especially in the administrative functions.
(Edited by R.Wamochie)