The Isiolo County Referral Hospital mortuary has 33 unclaimed bodies yet the facility has the capacity of accommodating only 12, a letter to the Senate shows.
A letter by the county secretary Dade Boru to the Senate Health Committee on the status of the facility said services at the mortuary have been stretched to the limit.
“Over the years with the growth of population, the facility has been handling bodies beyond its capacity occasioning the need to expand it to handle more bodies and overhaul the existing cooling system,” Boru said.
He noted that the facility has four cabinets each preserving three bodies.
“To handle all bodies that need preservation in the area, the morgue also uses other forms for preservation like embalmment with formalin,” he said.
Boru further noted that the facility is the only public mortuary in the area serving Isiolo, Marsabit, Samburu and part of Meru residents.
He said the hospital has been receiving bodies from other facilities causing overcrowding at its morgue.
“Overcrowding has occasioned the need for the hospital to stop receiving bodies originating from outside the facility to ease pressure on the morgue,” he added.
Boru said the county has measures to improve services at the morgue which include having a budgetary allocation for the overhaul of the cooling system.
