We've tracked and closed over 1,000 medical facilities engaging in SHA fraud – Ruto

President William Ruto has disclosed that his administration has already flagged and closed down at least 1,000 health facilities that have been involved in Social Health Authority (SHA) fraud.

Speaking during an engagement with Kenyans living and working in the United Kingdom, Ruto said more health facilities will be flagged and closed in the coming days.

He went on to say that the few criminals who have been working hard to see that the national medical insurance scheme fails will not succeed.

He insisted that SHA must be made effective and moral.

“The criminal elements that are staining SHA will not succeed. We have tracked and closed over 1,000 medical facilities engaging in fraud. More are on the way.

“Our health programme must remain efficient and incorruptible,” the President said.

He reiterated that SHA is fully functional.

In his remarks, however, the head of state did not reveal the number of the facilities flagged and those closed.

Ruto noted that so far, SHA has served over 4.9 million Kenyans in just eight months.

He said this was way above what the defunct National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) did.

“Our Social Health Authority is working. In eight months, the transformative medical scheme has served more than 4.9 million people, way above what NHIF would have managed.”

This comes a few days after Health CS Aden Duale, confirmed that 31 private hospitals across the country have been shut down for a range of illegal practices aimed at siphoning money from the public health fund.

“We have closed seven hospitals in Kisumu and others in Bungoma, Busia, Nairobi, Mandera, Wajir, Kajiado, and Kilifi,” he said.

“These facilities think they can continue stealing public money the way they did under NHIF. We will not allow that.”

Among the malpractices identified are falsifying patient data, double-claiming payments, and manipulating bed capacity—where small clinics with as few as 14 beds falsely claimed to operate 100-bed hospitals.

A statement released by the Health CS further detailed the scope of the fraud, citing incidents of ghost patient admissions, forced or unnecessary inpatient admissions, and the misuse of pre-authorisation and patient access codes to claim payments for services not rendered.

“Some healthcare workers are giving out pre-authorisation codes to enable hospitals to submit false claims,” Duale warned.

“If you’re doing this, we’re coming for you.”