What it will cost you to preserve loved one's body at City Mortuary

Giving a loved one a decent send-off begins with the choice of the mortuary.

In promoting its facilities, Nairobi county in the proposed Nairobi City County Finance Bill, 2023 (draft), has listed charges for Kenyans seeking services at City Mortuary, which has since been renamed to Nairobi Funeral Home.

Preservation charges in the first 10 days for both adults and infants will be Sh500. The charges will increase to Sh700 per day if the body stays at the facility past 10 days. Those are for bodies brought in from within Nairobi county.

For bodies brought to the facility from other counties, Sh700 will be charged per day.

For embalming services, Nairobi Funeral Home will charge Sh3,000 for adults and Sh2,500 for infants .

The Finance bill also proposes washing and dressing charges for adults, children infants at Sh2,800, Sh2,000 and Sh1,900 respectively for bodies.

Those brought from other counties will part with Sh3,000, Sh2,100 and Sh2,000 respectively.

Viewing charges will be Sh500 for an infant, child or adult.

Currently, the city morgue charges a standard fee of Sh500 per day per body.

For embalming, one is charged Sh2,500, washing and dressing at Sh2,800 then this is added to the number of days the body stays in the morgue.

Going further, the Finance Bill, 2023 (draft), the Nairobi Funeral Home will charge Sh500 to search for records of whether the body is of an infant, child or adult.

The morgue will not charge for burial permits.

To conduct a postmortem examination on weekdays, Sh5,000 for adults, Sh3,000 (children) and Sh1,500 (infants) will be charged.

During the weekend and after working hours, Sh8,000 will be charged for the procedure on the bodies regardless of whether it is an infant, child or adult.

To use the chapel at the facility, families will be charged Sh2,000 per hour.

The Nairobi City County Finance Bill 2023, has however not been finalised by the county executive.

In September 2021, head of City Mortuary Dr David Wanjohi told the Star that the declining fortunes of City Mortuary were due to its dilapidated state. The morgue was at some point associated with stench and poor services.

“I came here in 1993 when I was still a young man as a mortuary attendant. In the 1990s working at the morgue was bad. Those who were in charge tried to change things but it was impossible,” Wanjohi said.

Over the years the situation got worse with leaking roof, the facility lacked water, hence keeping the toilets clean was a problem, he said.

“Free water flow was a problem here. No renovation was done and the structures and equipment that existed when the mortuary was built in 1958 still remained in use,” Wanjohi added.

By then the morgue had a capacity of six bodies but as the years went by, it was expanded to hold 176 bodies.

Despite the increased capacity, the infrastructure remained dilapidated.

"In 2016, coolers at the facility had broken down for almost weeks causing a disaster. By then 14 machines were running the coolers but only five were in good condition."

Wanjohi told the Star that the morgue was in need of new freezers as the existing ones often broke down and repair was costly.

He said despite the morgue having 14 freezers, seven of them were standby freezers.

This year (2023), City Mortuary rehabilitation to transform it into a dignified facility started.

"Restoring dignity to our dearly departed and their families by improving the City Mortuary as well as our cemeteries. The contractor is on-site," Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja said earlier this year.

Works include the installation of new cooling units, cold room doors, and drainage works which is complete.

Public Health chief officer Tom Nyakaba told the Star that a contractor was on site to ensure all coolers were repaired and restored.

"This is to give proper and dignified services to Nairobians who have lost their loved ones. Under Governor Sakaja's leadership, we will ensure those who have lost their loved ones are treated with respect as a mark of last respect," he said.

According to a City Mortuary report dated April 5, 2023, Nairobi's main public morgue has 142 cooling units but only 33 are in use.

Sixty-three cooling units were installed and the morgue has 19 cold room doors of which, nine were supposed to be replaced. At the moment, City Hall has replaced six.

County's Public Participation, Public Engagement and Customer Service chief officer Lydia Mathia said her department would employ five customer service officers to handle customer care matters in the facility.

"A funeral gives friends and relatives an opportunity to express the love and respect they feel for someone who was important to them," she said.

Mathia said the morgue will have five officers deployed to the county funeral home to assist with recording of admissions and receiving clients.

This will also increase client public awareness and knowledge of how the funeral process works and assist the family deal with the loss experienced in a dignified manner.

To beef up security, the county government will increase the number of officers from six to 10 at the morgue