The country is on the brink of a health crisis if private and mission hospitals make good on their threat to suspend services today over Sh30 billion pending bills.

Private and mission hospitals across the country have vowed to deny patients services, except for emergency cases requiring life-saving intervention.

The facilities are demanding payment of National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) arrears amounting to Sh30 billion. The debt dates back to 2017 and is owed to public, private, mission and faith-based hospitals.