The Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakumicha, has temporarily suspended NHIF managers in all areas mentioned in an NTV exposé pending further investigation.
In addition, seven hospitals in those areas have been put under investigations, and the affected hospitals have been ordered to immediately transfer their current inpatients to other medical facilities.
In a statement issued on Monday, the CS ordered an immediate investigation into allegations of rogue health facilities making millions at the expense of Kenyans.
“We are embarking on a verification exercise of all payments across the country to flag out suspicious payments,” the CS said.
Nakumicha has directed the NHIF board to launch an immediate investigation into the matter and submit a preliminary report within the next 48 hours.
NTV exposed medical fraud in several hospitals in Nairobi and Meru counties on Sunday.
It was unearthed how men and women disguised as healthcare workers give the villagers hope by promising to save them from arthritis complications.
To sway unsuspecting Kenyans, they use the name of the National Health Insurance Fund.
They allegedly convinced patients to travel to certain health facilities where they would receive free medical services.
After receiving treatment, the patients were discharged and NHIF paid the facilities large sums of money.
The investigation found that eight different hospitals involved in the scheme were paid Sh1.54 billion for a total of 30,111 claims made between July 1, 2022 and June 9, 2023.
According to one of the whistleblowers, Salesio Mutuma, his petition to the Meru County Assembly and email to the NHIF requesting an investigation were never acknowledged or responded to.
“The rogue medics target elderly women and men with leg or knee problems. After this lady identifies them deep in the villages, she enquires if they are NHIF members and if their cards are up to date. If the patients meet these criteria, she convinces them that they need medical help. These people are called to a chief’s camp, so if you’re called to a chief’s camp for such a meeting, you know that the government knows about it, then they say the programme is being run by the president. So it is very easy to be taken in,” Mutuma told NTV’s Ibrahim Karanja.
