(If ghosts can earn salaries, who can we trust with our lives?)
By John Wesley
The scandal of ghost workers is not just about numbers on a payroll. It is about the silent murder of trust. Because once shadows can earn salaries, Kenyans are forced into a darker, more frightening question: if the system cannot even prove who exists, how can we trust the faces behind our healthcare?
When a nurse hands you a prescription, do you trust it? When a doctor pierces your skin with a syringe, do you believe in the hand behind it? Or do you find yourself silently asking ; are they truly qualified, or just another name pushed through a system turned into a family business?
This is the poison of ghost workers. It is not only about money lost. It is about the trust that dies quietly with every scandal. If the government can pay ghosts, how do we know the living ones are real professionals? If a payroll can be manipulated, why not the recruitment list of doctors, or the certification of nurses, or the licenses of pharmacists?
And so we are dragged into absurdity. Are we supposed to demand that every doctor walk into the ward carrying their framed degree like a badge of survival? Should every nurse hang their transcripts around their neck like an ID card before handing us medicine? Should every pharmacist staple proof of training to each prescription, so we know the hand behind the pills is not a fixed relative in a lab coat?
These questions sound ridiculous… but this is exactly where corruption has pushed us. Into a world where doubt is stronger than trust, and suspicion replaces faith.
The civil service, meant to be sacred; has been turned into a family business. Jobs are inherited like property, posts filled through favors instead of merit. In healthcare, this is not just corruption. It is danger. Because when you tamper with payrolls and recruitment lists in hospitals, you are not stealing money… you are gambling with lives.
The tragedy is not only in Siaya. This is a national disease. Every county, every ministry, every office has its own ghosts. They haunt not only the payroll but also the spirit of the people. And with every scandal, Kenyans lose a little more faith. Faith in systems. Faith in leaders. Faith in the very idea of public service.
Ghost workers may not stand in hospital corridors. They may never hold syringes or write prescriptions. But their shadow falls heavily across every bed, every ward, every waiting room. Because they leave us with a doubt that cuts deeper than any wound: who exactly is treating us?
And when doubt enters the room, trust dies. And when trust dies, so does dignity.
If Kenya cannot cleanse its health system of shadows, it will not just lose money. It will lose its people’s faith. And without faith, there is no healthcare. There is only fear.
