Why St Mary's Hospital Mumias has closed after 117 years of service
Western
By
Alexander Chagema
| Aug 29, 2025
After more than a century, St Mary’s Hospital in Mumias, Kakamega County, has ceased operations. The hospital’s staff received email notifications from the Human Resource department on July 1, 2025, telling them not to report for work until further notice.
Workers at the hospital had downed tools a few days earlier in protest after going without pay for four months. The inability to pay the workers their salaries is majorly attributed to a failure by the Social Health Authority (SHA) to remit funds to the hospital.
“St Mary’s Hospital was owed a lot of money by the defunct NHIF and is also owed quite a lot by the Social Health Authority (SHA). This is what has caused that great hospital to fail. There is a major problem with SHA, and it is not a political problem, it is a designed problem,” Rural and Urban Private Hospitals Association of Kenya chairman Brian Makamu Lishenga says.
SHA has been in the limelight for approving payments to ghost hospitals while real hospitals that have rendered services to patients are sidelined.
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Closed gates manned by hired security guards welcome visitors to the deserted St Mary’s Hospital Mumias.
Despite the hospital’s closure, however, the Comprehensive Care Unit (CCU), which handles patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, the Renal Unit and the mortuary are still operational.
Services offered by these departments are contracted and operate independently.
When The Standard team visited the hospital, there were three patients on the dialysis machines while two had just finished their three-hour sessions.
“I was on admission when the hospital closed, and we were hurriedly ordered out of the wards”, says 64-year Mathew Mulama Ambani who had just come out of the ward. Ambani attends two sessions of dialysis a week.
“I come here twice a week and each session costs Sh10,650. The Social Health Authority (SHA) pays this amount,” he says.
John Otsieno also attends dialysis at the hospital and says SHA takes care of the bill but if he needs any other medical services apart from the dialysis, he must look for another hospital. Prescriptions are given, but the patients must buy the drugs elsewhere from their own pockets.
“All we get here are the dialysis services. If any test is required or I need further treatment for other ailments, I am forced to look for another hospital in nearby Kakamega and Bungoma counties.”
In its good days, St Mary’s Hospital, Mumias served patients from the four Western Kenya counties of Kakamega, Busia, Bungoma, and Vihiga, and beyond.
The hospital was established in 1908 by missionaries, and by the time it was closing its doors to the public, it was being managed by the Catholic Church, diocese of Kakamega.
“Patients at St Mary’s used to come from as far as Mt Elgon because the services here were very good. It is a shame the hospital had to close in such a manner”, Fred Odunguli said.
Odunguli had accompanied his wife, who attends dialysis sessions once every week.
He says his wife was referred to St Mary’s from another hospital in Bungoma that rejected SHA due the problems that bedevil it.
“NHIF was far better than SHA. All that the government needed to do was to improve the system and deal with the corruption that had set in,” Odunguli said.
Mary Adikinyi has a touching story and an impassioned plea to the government to facilitate the reopening of the hospital.
“I am a crippled widow with two daughters suffering from sickle cell anemia. The closure of this hospital has affected me deeply,” she says amid tears. She lost the ability to walk 10 years ago and depends on well wishers.
Uncertainty still surrounds the possibility of reopening the hospital soon.
Efforts to reach the Bishop of the Kakamega Diocese did not bear fruit since he was held up in a meeting.