When former Gatundu South MP Jossy Ngugi sought the intervention of President Uhuru Kenyatta to have the Gatundu Level Five Hospital Morgue expanded, residents booed him saying the move would prompt more deaths.
The hostility of Gatundu residents against their then MP over the August 2013 request is now haunting them close to a decade later after it emerged that the facility is no longer a go zone due to unbearable stench emanating from the bad state of the morgue.
Built in the 1960s and commissioned by first Head of State Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1966, the facility that has a capacity of only nine bodies is now overloaded and can no longer take in more bodies.
Its refrigerating machinery has broken down and preservation of bodies is no longer effective with locals now up in arms over a foul stench that is coming from the morgue, especially at night.
Already, the Gatundu Level Five Hospital management has acknowledged that the mortuary’s worrying situation requires urgent interventions insisting that the current capacity gaps cannot allow for preservation of more bodies.
Dr Jesse Ngugi, the hospital's Medical Superintendent, recently wrote to Gatundu North and South Sub-Counties police commanders advising them not to take more bodies to the facility.
In his letter, Ngugi regretted that huge hospital workload, collapse of the morgue freezers and inevitable delays in processing of disposal of unclaimed bodies cannot allow for further admission of bodies at the facility.
“This has been occasioned by an increase in hospital workload, collapse of our freezers and unavoidable delays in processing of disposal of unclaimed bodies,” Ngugi wrote.
“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that owing to the foregoing, we will not be able to receive bodies outside the usual hospital workload. Kindly consider taking such bodies to General Kago Funeral Home in Thika Level Five Hospital,” Ngugi added in the letter.
The hospital boss decried that the current capacity at the mortuary remains constrained until the problems are solved.
"The above requires both systematic and operational interventions that the management has embarked on," Ngugi explained.
Gatundu morgue saga
Kiambu County has been planning to put up a 36-body-capacity mortuary to replace the old one following an outcry by the local residents that the bodies of their loved ones are being piled up and not accorded decent storage due to limited space.
In 2018, former Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu set aside Sh50 million for construction of a new morgue, a project that stalled as soon as Waititu was impeached in January 2020.
Residents led by Francis Muiruri now want the current Kiambu leadership led by governor Kimani Wamatangi to fast-track completion of the facility to save the current situation which they insist is in dire need of immediate action.
"The facility was to be expanded and the project even commenced but stalled along the way. It is now the duty of those in office to ensure completion of a new morgue to end the challenges being witnessed at the old one. Currently, bodies are not being preserved properly and are being neglected because of the stench coming from the facility," Muiruri said.
The Wamatangi-led government has allocated Sh 15 million for completion of the new facility in its FY 2023/2024 budget.
