Hospital to build Sh8m mortuary

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Hospital new CEO Dr. Peter Okoth during an interview at his office in Kisumu on August 21,2018. [Photo: Denish Ochieng/ Standard]

A new mortuary will be constructed at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital, the CEO has said. Peter Okoth said the construction of the Sh8 million facility will start in a month's time.

It will have the capacity to preserve 45 bodies and is expected to help decongest the current mortuary that can keep 24 bodies.

The mortuary, which serves Nyanza and parts of western Kenya, at times receives up to 100 bodies in a month. Most of the bodies, Dr Okoth explained, were from accidents, murders and suicides. “The new mortuary will operate 24 hours," Okoth said.

“We will have technologies for postmortem, a full range of organised, stand-alone and bench top pathology workstations,” Okoth said. The hospital, which has four mortuary technicians, will hire another one once the new mortuary is built.