Nakuru County Government is calling on members of the public to identify and collect unclaimed bodies at the Nakuru Level 5 hospital mortuary.
Chief Officer for Public Health Services, Dr Daniel Wainaina gave the public 21 days from June 15 to July 7, 2021 for the process, after which the County will seek authority to dispose of the bodies.
Some 24 unclaimed bodies are at the Nakuru Level 5 Teaching and Referral Hospital Mortuary.
Dr. Wainaina said the bodies have been in the morgues from October last year to May this year, the oldest being that of an 80-year-old man.
“This has led to congestion in the facility not intended to hold such a high number of bodies at ago,” said Wainaina.
The Nakuru Level 5 Teaching and Referral Hospital Mortuary, for instance, has a holding capacity of 60 bodies, with roughly eight bodies coming in daily.
The incident has forced the hospital’s management to house more than 100 corpses at a time, a situation that stretches the facility financially and in terms of maintenance.
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Many of the deceased are unknown persons, while a small number have their names and identification numbers recorded. Their deaths are from accidents, drowning, natural causes, murder, mob justice and suicide.
This is the second time in a year that the County has called for the collection of bodies, a clear indication that many people die without the knowledge of their kin who might be living in different parts of the country.
In event the bodies are not collected the law requires that the authority concerned should bury the dead in public cemeteries according to local authority’s provision.
“Plans are underway to replace the old and huge mortuary refrigerators with modern and efficient ones that will also increase capacity.”
Already, the County administration has built a 118-body capacity mortuary at the Naivasha Sub-County Referral Hospital at Sh35 million as part of the health infrastructural upgrade programme,” Dr Wainaina revealed..
