Hospital moves in to dispose 20 bodies

Relatives with missing kin have fourteen days to check with Naivasha Sub-County Hospital mortuary before twenty unclaimed bodies are disposed of in a public cemetery.

In a notice, the hospital said that some of the bodies had been unclaimed for over four months, affecting services at the facility.

The move comes at a time that the County has run out of cemetery land and the bodies are expected to be disposed of at Longonot cemetery in the outskirts of Naivasha town.

As per the notice handed over to various police stations and government offices, fourteen of the bodies were men who were brought in by police.

According to Naivasha Sub-county hospital Superintendent Dr Angeline Ithondeka, majority of the bodies had been at the morgue for over four months.

She noted that the current mortuary had a capacity of eighteen bodies, adding that the unclaimed bodies had overstretched their services.

“This is a normal exercise where we dispose bodies which have not been claimed after four months in a public cemetery,” she said.

She noted that for years, Naivasha town had only one public morgue which served even neighboring counties of Nyandarua, Kiambu and Narok.

“Whenever there is an accident along the major highways, bodies are brought to this facility,” she said.

To this end, Ithondeka added that the construction of a new mortuary in the hospital was in the last phase so as to address the current challenges.

According to her, the mortuary would have a capacity of 68 bodies and had been fully funded by the County government.

“The new mortuary which is in the final stages will help decongest the current one as it has a bigger capacity of 68 bodies,” she said.