KNH can’t tell if the killer of patient was an intruder 

The Kenyatta National Hospital said Sunday they can not tell if the killer of a patient at the facility ward came from outside. 

KNH Medical Services Director Dr. William Sigilai however said that a probe led by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is underway to establish whether Gilbert Kinyua’s killer breached security or was already in the building before committing the crime.

“We don’t have any evidence that someone walked in and committed the said crime. We’ve handed over the matter to DCI,” he told the press on Sunday.

Sigilai allayed fears of insecurity at their facility following the shocking murder of an admitted patient.

Gilbert Kinyua Muthoni, 39, was found on a hospital bed with a slit throat on Friday morning and the murderer had taken flight.

Sigilai said that despite the security breach, no alarm should be raised about the safety of patients and visitors since the hospital observes a high-level security procedure at its entrances and exits.

He also noted that all CCTV footage from Ward 7B has been availed to detectives, revealing that no CCTV cameras are installed in patient rooms for privacy reasons but they have been installed in all alleys.

He said the hospital now remains on high alert to prevent the occurrence of a similar incident as another was witnessed in 2015.

“We are recognizing that a new threat is coming to the fore, an issue that has to be escalated,” he noted, adding that the case is still in court.

He said a keen frisking procedure is always undertaken and security officers manning the facility are always on high alert.

Speaking with permission of Kinyua’s family, Dr. Sigilal stated that the victim was admitted on December 11, 2024, after being referred from St.Mary’s Lang’ata for special treatment.

“It was noted that Kinyua had developed pressure sores resulting from prolonged immobility. He was also diagnosed with a rare nerve condition that weakened his muscles. He therefore required what we call nursing care,” noted Dr. Sigilal.

A 6 pm routine check, DR. Sigilal stated, showed that Kinyua was in a good state and four nurses were left in his ward to man the night shift.

It was only when a nurse doing a 6 am routine check found Kinyua’s face covered with a blanket drenched in blood.

Upon further inspection, she discovered that Kinyua’s throat was slit and she immediately alerted her fellow nurse, the hospital’s security and the DCI.

He says that the hospital will support Kinyua’s family as they prepare to bury their kin.

Kinyua’s wife Susan Wanjiku said that after getting married in 2011,  life took a turn in 2018 when her husband was diagnosed with a mental health problem.

Since then, they had been in and out of hospital accumulating huge bills, up to the day he was murdered in a ward at KNH.

She has called for justice to be given in the mysterious case.

Police have so far grilled up to 20 people including patients, hospital staff and security over the incident.

The team has also interviewed the only other patient who was in the same ward. The patient was weak and could not tell what happened.

It came nine years after a similar killing happened at the same facility.

Cosmas Mutunga Kenyatta, 42, who was found brutally murdered on his hospital bed in November 2015.

Mutunga was admitted to the hospital’s Ward 8C on November 8 and was found dead in the night with stab wounds and one of his eyes gouged out.

He was with an incapacitated and deaf cancer patient at the time he was killed. Three nurses were on duty on the night of the brutal murder.

The only witness to the murder was a 12-year-old patient who could neither hear, speak or write.

A postmortem report indicated  that Mutunga was badly battered, his skull broken, eyes gouged out and one of his legs shattered in a sad episode that exposed security lapses at the region’s largest referral facility.