Government to clear Sh 4 billion debt owed to hospitals by next week

Health CS Aden Duale before the National Assembly's Health committee to consider Budget Estimates FY 2025/26 at Parliament buildings, Nairobi. May 14th,2025. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

The government has committed to clearing the Sh4 B debt that the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) has by next week.

The money is owed to hospitals before NHIF was replaced by the Social Health Authority (SHA)

The first beneficiaries will be facilities that were owed less than Sh10m, with others waiting until July next year, when funds will be available to clear the Sh33 billion that the fund owes hospitals.

According to Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, the payment had been factored under the recently enacted Supplementary budget and will first clear bills of up to Sh10 million.

Duale said the remaining pending bills, once verified, will be factored under the 2026 - 2027 budget and cleared starting July, signaling a major relief to strained health facilities.

The move comes after an outcry from public, private, and faith-based facilities over the unpaid services worth billions of shillings by the collapsed NHIF, which faced closure.

"Government will pay Sh4B verified claims to Healthcare facilities owed by the defunct NHIF by next week, while the rest of the pending bills will be factored in the 2026 -27 financial budget", said Duale.

Speaking in Naivasha during the 53rd Medical Annual Association Conference, Duale said the move to clear the bills will ease the financial burden of affected facilities.

The CS said the Ministry was fast tracking disbursement of verifiable claims to services offered under the Social Health Authority to strengthen the delivery of healthcare services.

Duale said under the SHA, the authority had to date registered over 30 million Kenyans, collected payments worth Sh169.9 billion, and had disbursed Sh124.5 billion to healthcare facilities as claims.

He added that the authority had onboarded 10,646 facilities, noting that 8.5m Kenyans had so far accessed free healthcare under the primary healthcare and 3.6m under specialised care.

Duale said the Ministry was streamlining KEMSA to ease the distribution of drugs to facilities, adding that the agency has achieved a drug refill rate of 89 per cent.

On his part, Dr. Patrick Omoth, the Director General of Health, noted the shift from multilateral healthcare financing, calling for the marshaling of domestic resources to fill the gap.

Omoth said the SHA authority was reviewing the benefits tariff package to ease access to healthcare for Kenyans, urging local research to address local health gaps.

Kenya Medical Association (KMA) President Dr. Simon Kigondu regretted the delayed disbursement of claims to facilities for services rendered while calling for a timely review.

Kigundu urged the Ministry to address the teething problems facing the SHA system, including boosting financing for the primary and critical healthcare services.