Nakuru County Government has issued a 21-day notice to members of the public alerting them to collect bodies which remain unclaimed at the Nakuru Level 5 Hospital.

Nakuru County Public Health Officer, George Gachomba, said 20 adult unclaimed bodies had been lying at the hospital's morgue for over 3 months and were decomposing.

“The Department of Public Health Services has exhausted all the available mechanisms to trace their next of kin without success,” Gachomba revealed on Monday.

The county has in that regard released a list of the bodies indicating the date and nature of death and escort contacts to assist in tracking down their next of kin in the coming 21 days.

Cap 242 of the Public Health Act states that an unclaimed body should be removed from a mortuary in two weeks or it is disposed of in a mass grave after court permission is sought.

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Gachomba says the unclaimed bodies had been congesting the mortuary causing the Nakuru County Government to incur huge costs used to preserve them endlessly.

Therefore, members of the public have been urged to help trace, identify and collect the bodies within 21 days failure to which they will be disposed of at Nakuru South Cemetery.

In July, Nakuru County disposed of 26 adult unclaimed bodies and 20 unknown foetuses that had been lying at the mortuary for more than three months.

The Nakuru Level 5 Hospital Mortuary can comfortably preserve 60 bodies at a go and plans are underway to replace the old huge mortuary refrigerators with modern efficient ones.

Governor Lee Kinyanjui’s regime has built a 118-body capacity mortuary at the Naivasha Sub-County Referral Hospital to the tune of Sh35 million as part of his health infrastructure upgrade program.