Nairobi News

NewsWhat's Hot

Sh400, 000 mortuary bill denies family chance to bury kin four years after death


The body of a middle-aged man is lying in a hospital mortuary in Migori County four and a half years after he died.

Antony Ochieng’s body has been detained by the administration of Rapcom Hospital over unpaid mortuary bills amounting to Sh417, 000 after his family failed to raise the money.

The late Ochieng disappeared in 2012 and his body was discovered in 2015 at the mortuary after police collected his badly mutilated remains from a thicket where it was dumped by his killers.

The assistant chief notified the family of the body and asked them to visit the mortuary for verification which later proved to be Ochieng’s.

The Rapcom Mortuary then gave the family a bill for the preservation over the three years amounting to Sh300, 000 which they have been unable to raise and has been increasing with time.

RELEASED FOR BURIAL

“Wacha walete ile kitu wako nayo (let them bring whatever they have) then we negotiate. Hawajaleta hata (they haven’t brought even) one shilling so we cannot because it’s a private hospital. We cannot release body free of charge. We have treated that body for more than four years using our materials,” said Joseph Otieno, an official of the hospital.

The late Ochieng, who was aged 25, disappeared in 2012 and his family assumed he was looking for work in a different town.

They reported him as missing at a police station in Rongo and it was only in 2015 that their kin’s body was found at Rapcom Mortuary.

The family is now appealing to well wishers to come to their aid and assist them in having the body released by the hospital for burial.

“Kama naweza patikana hata a well-wisher yule anaeza kunisaidia kutoa tu mtoto wangu kwa mortuary nikuje nizike hapa nipate tu nafuu. Hiyo tu,” (If a well-wisher can be found to help in having the body released by the hospital for burial, I will be very relieved. Only the that.) said the deceased mother Hellen Aketch.