Police are investigating an incident in which a man allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor of Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Nairobi.
The patient identified as Timothy Kinuthia, 22 had been a patient at the hospital before the incident happened on March 2 at about 1 am when most patients were asleep.
He had been admitted to ward 7B on the seventh floor of the hospital when he jumped to the ground floor and died on the spot upon landing on a pavement.
Security personnel at the hospital said they heard a loud bang on the ground floor and on checking, they found the patient had already died.
They called the police who processed the scene and moved the body to the mortuary.
Police at the scene said they do not know what motivated the patient’s moves.
The hospital is yet to issue a statement on how long the patient had been at the facility.
It is not the first time that such an incident has happened at the hospital and from that floor amid calls for more measures to address the trend.
The seventh and eighth floors of the hospital host patients suffering from communicable diseases such as malaria, HIV/Aids, pneumonia and Tuberculosis (TB).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says such cases of suicide are attributed to joblessness, the breakup of relationships or a death, academic failures or pressures, legal difficulties, financial difficulties, bullying, previous suicide attempts, history of suicide in a family, alcoholism and substance misuse, depression and bipolar disorder.
WHO calls suicide a serious global public health issue, among the top 20 leading causes of death worldwide.
