Nairobi Metropolitan Services to dispose of 185 unclaimed bodies

Members of the public have been called upon by the Nairobi Metropolitan services to come and identify bodies lying in the City Mortuary.

According to a public notice published on the Standard newspaper, the bodies have overstayed in the morgue and the county government will seek the authority for disposal if they are not collected in seven days. 

The bodies are in different morgues around the city with City Mortuary having 157 bodies, Mama Lucy Hospital Mortuary with 16 bodies and Mbagathi Hospital mortuary with 12 such bodies.  

The bodies are mostly of unknown persons whose causes of death range from mob justice, murder, drowning, accidents, abortion, suicide and foetus deaths. Most of the bodies have been lying in the mortuaries from late last year while others have been there since March of 2019. 

It is believed that most of the unclaimed bodies in mortuaries are of people who were either forgotten or cannot be traced by family members who don’t live in Nairobi. 

It is the same situation that was experienced in Kiambu County Referral Hospital early this year where a mortuary meant to have 38 bodies had more than 64 corpses that had stayed for more than two years.

Nairobi city Mortuary holds a capacity of 160 bodies with about 18 bodies coming in every day. However, the mortuary is known to house more than 200 corpses at a time, a situation that not only brings in the challenges of space but also the financial implications needed to maintain the facility. 

It is with this regard that the County of Nairobi sees it fit to dispose of the bodies when family and friends of the deceased fail to pick up the bodies of their loved ones in the given seven days.