Hope for Closed St. Mary’s Mumias, 93-Year-Old Mission Hospital of Kakamega Diocese in Kenya, to Reopen

“Our business is to make sure we deliver accessible, affordable, quality healthcare to the people of Kenya within our borders,” the Kenyan CS said.

In his address to journalists, CS Duale also clarified, “St. Mary’s Hospital has not been closed by SHA. It has not been closed by the regulator, the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council. Their license is valid. It has not been closed by the digital health agency that controls the system. It has all the valid licenses.”

From December 2024 to August, the government official said that St. Mary’s Mission Hospital had received reimbursement from SHA amounting to KES. 98 million, a sum that Bishop Obanyi also reconfirmed during the September 3 joint press conference.

“This has been disbursed across the months that we have had. We believe a pending payment of KES 35 million ... will help us clear the arrears of the workers,” the Local Ordinary of Kakamega Diocese said, indicating hope for the reopening of the health facility that is under the auspices of the Congregation of Sisters of Mary of Kakamega (SMK).

“The genesis of the strike of (St. Mary’s Mumias Mission Hospital) workers came because of the accruing arrears from the NHIF (National Health Insurance Fund), which is about KES. 143 million (USD. 1.1 million),” Bishop Obanyi said about Kenya’s parastatal that provided universal health coverage (UHC) to citizens, which was later restructured to the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF).

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Earlier, Catholic Bishops in Kenya had reaffirmed their commitment to spearheading the Church’s mission of teaching and healing amid what they described as “serious” challenges in the East African nation’s education and health sectors.

“We shall remain indefatigable in our resolution to continue helping our communities, building our country in the area of education and the area of health as much as we can,” the Chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), Archbishop Maurice Muhatia Makumba, said on August 30 during the Installation of Bishop John Kiplimo Lelei as the pioneer Local Ordinary of Kapsabet Catholic Diocese.

Bishop Muhatia described the closure of St. Mary’s Mumias Mission Hospital as "regrettable" and expressed the hope that such is not going to happen to any other Catholic Mission hospital in the country.

“We pray it doesn’t happen to any other mission hospital, because what has ailed and brought Mumias Hospital to what has happened to it now is not only about Mumias Hospital,” the Local Ordinary of Kenya’s Archdiocese of Kisumu said.

He emphasized the need for swift action in resolving the underlying issues to safeguard the lives of countless family members, who depend on these institutions for their healthcare and livelihood.

Earlier in February, KCCB members weighed in on the stalemate between SHA and private health facilities in the country, including Catholic hospitals, over arrears and payments.

They called for a review of the 2023 Social Health Insurance Fund Act (SHIF Act 2023) following the controversy between SHA and private health facilities under the Rural and Urban Private Hospitals Association of Kenya (RUPHA) that had been occasioned by unsettled outstanding arrears of some KES 30 billion (US$ 231.1 million) from the previous health parastatal, the NHIF.

The Catholic Church leaders raised concerns that at the time, the Catholic Church health facilities were owed over 2.5 billion (US$19.2 million) warning that failure on the part of the Kenyan government raised concerns over the sustainability of privately-owned health facilities.

“We are still very unhappy that our hospitals, which serve mainly the underprivileged, are grounding because the government is not keeping its promises to remit funds owed to them,” Kenya’s Catholic Bishops lamented in their collective statement at the launch of the 2025 Lenten Campaign that was realized under the theme, “The Kenya We Desire”.

In his September 3 announcement of the reopening of St. Mary’s Hospital, CS Duale said that arrears of over KES. 10 million (USD. 76,700.00) owed to any institution will be paid only after verification that began in June.

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“If you want me to pay you, you must be ready for verification of those pending bills. Minus verification, we are not going to pay money,” he said, and added, “We must protect public resources.”

The verification process was initiated after reported fraudulent claims in the SHA system that involved alleged malpractices that included falsifying patient data, double-claiming payments, inflating bed capacity, ghost admissions, unneeded inpatient admissions, and misuse of pre-authorization and patient access codes.

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