Senate Bill seeks to end detention of patients, bodies over unpaid bills
If passed, the Bill would provide a legal framework to ensure that patients and bodies are not held over financial disputes, compelling health facilities to seek alternative means of recovering outstanding fees rather than infringing on people’s rights.
Hospitals and mortuaries will no longer be allowed to detain patients or bodies due to unpaid bills if a proposed amendment to the law is passed.
The Health (Amendment) Bill, 2025, introduced by Nyamira Senator Okong’o Mogeni, seeks to prohibit health facilities from holding patients or corpses over outstanding medical fees.
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Mogeni argues that such detentions violate fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and international treaties that Kenya has ratified.
“The right to liberty is not violable, and a person’s liberty can only be curtailed by procedural laws,” Mogeni stated.
He cited Article 9(1) of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which Kenya has ratified.
“Everyone has the right to liberty of person. No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and by such procedures as are established by law," the Senator said.
Mogeni noted that detaining bodies of deceased persons over unpaid hospital bills serves no purpose.
“When one dies and they are not able to pay the hospital bill, you achieve nothing by detaining the body. A lifeless body has no value. The best thing to do is to sue the deceased’s estate includes property, assets, liabilities, and debts belonging to the person when they died, after the burial,” he explained.
The Bill aligns with Article 28 of the Constitution, which guarantees every person’s dignity and the right to have that dignity respected and protected. Furthermore, Article 39 upholds the right to freedom of movement, which Mogeni argues is violated when hospitals detain patients due to unpaid fees.
Public health policies require that bodies be interred within six months, and Section 137 of the Penal Code criminalises obstruction of a burial. Despite these provisions, hospitals and mortuaries have continued to detain bodies over pending bills.
The Bill, however, does not outline specific penalties for facilities that contravene the proposed law. Instead, it states, “The Cabinet Secretary may make regulations for recovery of fees paid to access services in a health facility.”
Senator Mogeni pointed out that courts have repeatedly ruled against the detention of patients and bodies over unpaid medical bills.
“Our courts have on numerous occasions been faced with cases revolving around detention of patients by hospitals for nonpayment of bills,” he said.
In 2021, Justice Weldon Korir ruled that holding patients or bodies for unpaid fees was unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional.
Similarly, in 2023, Kirinyaga Woman Representative Njeri Maina sponsored an amendment to the Health Act that not only outlawed such detentions but also imposed a Sh1 million fine on violators. Maina argued that Africans have a strong cultural connection to their deceased relatives and that it was unjust for hospitals to withhold bodies due to outstanding bills.
If passed, the Bill would provide a legal framework to ensure that patients and bodies are not held over financial disputes, compelling health facilities to seek alternative means of recovering outstanding fees rather than infringing on people’s rights.
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