Hospitals in Kenya to bury 475 unclaimed bodies

Kenya’s largest public referral hospital has announced it will bury hundreds of unclaimed bodies of relatives in its morgue if family members do not claim them.

“Members of the public are asked to identify the remaining and take the bodies within seven days, otherwise, the hospital will seek authority from the court to bury them,” Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The 541 human bodies include 475 children and 66 adults.

The hospital published the names of the deceased, but a few bodies have not yet been identified by relatives.

KNH and other public hospitals and mortuaries in Kenya regularly issue notices to relatives to take unclaimed bodies. Bodies that remain unclaimed after a set period are often buried in mass graves.

The bodies are usually those of patients who die in the hospital without their families knowing. Some families also choose not to take the bodies of loved ones to morgues when they are unable to pay their hospital or mortuary costs.