Kenya’s health cartels get rich under SHA while patients die
From NHIF to SHA, billions have been looted while patients die on hospital floors. Kenya’s health reforms keep feeding cartels, not saving lives...
✨ Key Highlights
Kenya's new Social Health Authority (SHA), launched in October 2024 to replace the corrupt National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), is already embroiled in significant fraud scandals, with billions of shillings being lost to cartels. This corruption threatens to undermine universal healthcare efforts, leaving patients without critical medical services.
- The SHA has rejected Sh10.6 billion worth of fraudulent claims in less than a year, following the NHIF's estimated loss of over Sh50 billion to fraud before its dissolution.
- Health CS Aden Duale stated in August 2025 that his ministry had suspended 40 hospitals and blacklisted 12 doctors in an effort to combat the fraud.
- Investigators uncovered "ghost facilities," fake patient files, and "upcoding," where hospitals billed for expensive treatments that never occurred, including a "hospital in a phone" receiving Sh10 million.
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Social Health Authority (SHA) Faces Allegations of Fraud and Missing Payment Claims - August 2025
Kenya's Social Health Authority (SHA), launched in October 2024 to replace the NHIF, is embroiled in significant fraud scandals, with reports of billions of shillings being lost to cartels. The Social Health Authority has refuted claims that a list of payments to hospitals went missing and that it disabled the Kenya Master Facility Registry. This response came after payment records and the registry became inaccessible on Monday, August 25, amidst allegations of massive fraud. Francis Atwoli, Secretary General of COTU, has accused the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Digital Health Authority (DHA) of responsibility for the fraudulent claims. Atwoli asserts that the SHA lacks autonomy due to its reliance on an IT platform controlled by the MoH and DHA, which threatens to undermine universal healthcare efforts.
