The Nairobi county government has buried 97 unclaimed bodies from the Mbagathi Hospital Mortuary after a court permitted them to dispose the bodies.
Nairobi County Government had raised concerns over the growing number of unclaimed bodies that continued to lay at the hospital’s mortuary with no one to lay claim hence filling up the facility.
The 97 bodies had accumulated as from April 2017, reducing the Mbagathi Hospital Mortuary storage capacity.
City Court Chief Magistrate R. Oganyo issued an order on the 16th of October 2019 allowing the County government to dispose the bodies.
“Upon hearing the application for disposal of 97 unclaimed bodies presented before me by the counsel for the applicant, it is hereby ordered that the application to dispose the attached list of 97 bodies is granted,” the magistrate said.
The 97 bodies buried by City Hall include 56 males and 41 females and were disposed in a mass grave at the Lang’ata Cemetery.
Currently, there are 131 bodies that are yet to be identified at the City Morgue with seven more bodies still stuck at the Mama Lucy Hospital despite a recommendation by the Public Health Act that stipulates that a body should be removed from a mortuary for disposal in a maximum period of two weeks.
The unclaimed bodies at the City Mortuary and at Mama Lucy Hospital are set for disposal with an eminent advert to be placed on the dailies.
The 97 unclaimed bodies disposed by the County government had reduced the Mbagathi mortuary to the capacity of 23 bodies instead of the 120 bodies supposed to be stored with the highest accumulation in 2018 being 70 bodies.
Mbagathi mortuary had 12 unclaimed bodies in the year 2017, 70 in 2018 and 15 bodies in 2019.
The unclaimed bodies being disposed at this year from Mbagathi Mortuary, Mama Lucy Hospital and City Mortuary alone are 235.
The Nairobi County government is appealing to Kenyans to visit the Mama Lucy Hospital and the City Mortuary to identify the bodies before they can be disposed adding that some of the bodies were abandoned by relatives who were unable to pay hospital bills.
City Hall had earlier published names of 23 unclaimed bodies at City Mortuary which helped as 12 bodies were identified and collected.
If you have any missing members of your family, make a point to visit and view the bodies to rule out the possibility that they could be among those disposed by the County Government.
Read Also: Top 10 Best Affordable Maternity Hospitals in Kenya