Hospital seeks order to dispose 26 unclaimed bodies

The management of Naivasha sub-county hospital has now moved to court seeking an order to dispose 26 unclaimed bodies.

This follows the expiry of a 21-day-notice that the facility had issued to members of the public before disposing the bodies some of which are decomposing.

This came as it emerged that that facility whose capacity is twelve bodies had a total of 36 unclaimed bodies majority of whom were brought in by police.

Among the bodies are those victims that were murdered elsewhere and dumped along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway and Naivasha-Mai Mahiu road.

According to documents filed at the Naivasha law courts, the bodies had been lying in the public mortuary for over four months now.

“This is to notify the public and relevant authorities that the hospital mortuary has 26 badly decomposed and unclaimed bodies that have exceeded the required 21 days,” reads the notice.

The court documents noted that despite public notices, relatives had failed to collect the bodies thus overstretching services in the facility.

Through the department of public health, the institution said that the bodies will be buried in a mass grave either in Longonot or Gilgil once the notice expires.

Apart from bodies collected by police, others in the list were victims of road accidents mainly along the highway and patients who had been abandoned in the wards.

A junior officer in the facility admitted that services in the mortuary which serves neighboring counties of Nyandarua, Narok and Kiambu were over-stretched.

“The hospital’s mortuary is ever over-stretched as there is no county facility and all the bodies are brought here despite the low capacity,” said the worker.

Meanwhile residents of Kayole have praised Nakuru county government for moving in to rehabilitate the Naivasha dumpsite which was in poor condition.

They termed the move as long overdue noting that for years the facility had continued to emit poisonous waste to neighboring farms and schools.

According to one of the area leaders Jamleck Waiganjo, the county had moved in to fence the facility to contain the waste.

Waiganjo noted that for years, they had continued to lose livestock and even wildlife which strayed into the dumpsite.

“The county should be looking at transferring this dumpsite away from estates as it’s always a bother despite efforts to rehabilitate it,” he said.