The audit, released on Monday, found that Alexandria’s Dar Alwan Clinic had charged 3.2 million Egyptian pounds (about €61,000) in treatment costs to one patient account between 2022 and 2025. That account belonged to Kalda, 64, a retired bus dispatcher who now volunteers at the clinic’s registration desk.
Auditors matched the entries against appointment logs and found 1,684 visits by 612 people, mostly patients receiving subsidised consultations and medicines. Kalda had received one blood-pressure check, the review found; the rest of the account was a workaround for billing care when the clinic’s system had no category for anonymous charitable treatment.
One file, hundreds of patients
The mix-up surfaced during a financial audit commissioned after Dar Alwan’s operating costs climbed to 59 million pounds last year, against 55 million pounds in revenue. The clinic treats about 11,000 people a year in Sidi Gaber, a busy Alexandria district, and relies on donations to subsidise care for patients who cannot pay the full fee.
Auditor Endre Dudás said staff had opened Kalda’s patient file during his blood-pressure visit, then reused its number for patients whose care was paid from the clinic’s charity fund. “The account looked like one person consuming an impossible amount of care. The appointment trail showed a whole waiting room,” he said.
I came in for one check-up; apparently I became a clinic full of people.
Mark Kalda, volunteer
The volunteer behind the number
Kalda said he learned of the audit when a clinic administrator asked him to confirm his date of birth against a list of appointments. He had spent three mornings a week helping patients complete forms and find the right desk, work he began after retiring in 2021. “I thought they wanted to know why I kept coming back,” he said. “I didn’t know the computer thought I was being treated every day.”
The clinic’s medical director, Betania Laksita, said staff used the file because the billing software required a patient number before it would record a subsidised visit. A shared account was intended as a short-term fix, she said, but the cost entries continued for four years as the clinic added more services.
The audit did not find that Kalda had received money or treatment beyond his check-up. It did find that the system made it harder to verify which patients had received subsidised care, and advised the clinic to replace the shared record with individual, privacy-protected codes. Dar Alwan says it has begun that change and is checking the affected appointment records.
Laksita said the clinic would not ask patients to repay the costs or interrupt care while records are corrected. “The treatment happened; the accounting trail was wrong,” she said. The board will review the new billing system in January, while Kalda plans to keep volunteering—this time, he joked, with a careful eye on the registration screen.
