City Hall decries the high number of unclaimed bodies at Mbagathi Hospital
City Hall has appealed to Nairobi residents to come forward and identify more than 90 bodies lying at Mbagathi Hospital.
Nairobi county Health executive Mohamed Dagane says that a total of 97 unclaimed bodies have been lying at the county hospital’s mortuary for months with some as far back as last year.
TO BE DISPOSED
He said that the bodies started accumulating at the morgue in 2018 when 70 were booked in and never claimed. Another 27 have been booked since the beginning of the year, with 12 registered at the facility in the month of April alone.
The health executive pointed out that out of the 97 bodies, 56 are males while the rest are of females.
“We have noted with great concern that a big number of bodies are lying in the morgues because no one has bothered to come identify and collect them. We are going to do a gazette notice which will be published in the dailies with the names of the 97 unclaimed bodies for them to be identified,” said Mr Dagane.
Mr Dagane stated that the families of the departed ones will be given time to identify the bodies and pick them up while those that will be left behind will then be disposed off in accordance with the Public Health Act.
UNCLAIMED BODIES
He urged the public to be collecting the bodies of their loved ones to ensure there is total utilization of the mortuary.
Last month, City Hall raised a red flag over the high number of 23 unclaimed bodies at the City Mortuary but after publishing the names, only half of the bodies were identified and collected.
On his part, acting Nairobi County Secretary Leboo Morintat said failure to collect the bodies may lead to congestion at the facility as new bodies are brought to the morgue on a daily basis.
IDENTIFICATION
“We will work with the police to help in the identification of the uncollected bodies as well as trying to reach out to respective families. 97 is big number for the facility as it cannot hold more than 100 bodies,” said Mr Morintat.
The hospital’s health Administrative Officer Nelly Induli said that moving forward, the facility will be doing a monthly compilation of the unclaimed bodies to avoid accumulation at the morgue.
She said that the hospital has already forwarded the names to the county government for the preparation of a gazette notice.
“The Hospital will give the affected families a notice of 21 days whereby if the bodies are not identified and claimed, we will then proceed to bury them in a mass grave at Lang’ata Cemetery, ‘she said.