Kenya's Social Health Authority (SHA), established to restore confidence in the healthcare system after replacing the graft-ridden National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), is now grappling with a massive fraud scandal. Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has been urged by stakeholders and leaders to take personal responsibility for the reported fraud. Duale himself revealed that SHA had rejected Sh10 billion in claims from fraudulent hospitals, sparking fresh concerns over public fund management under the new scheme.

Simultaneously, private health providers across the country are sounding an alarm over unprecedented financial distress, directly linking their plight to unpaid claims by the Social Health Authority. The Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF), representing approximately 60 percent of medical care in Kenya, warned that its network is on the brink of collapse due to ballooning debts. These debts are largely inherited from the defunct NHIF, with KHF accusing the government of failing to honor President William Ruto’s March 5 directive to settle all NHIF debts below Sh10 million.

The federation's internal memo highlighted that the accumulated debt has reached an