Immaculate Auma , mother of one, made the saddest journey in her entire life from Mbagathi hospital to city mortuary. She was forced to carry the body of her baby for about 5km to mortuary because officials at the hospital where the boy, six-month-old died could not help transport it. She made her first stop at a police post at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), where she was required to file a notification.
With tears in her eyes and still cradling the lifeless body, she had to walk again to City Mortuary, where attendants kept her waiting for hours. Auma and her mother, Linet Atieno, sat on the cold concrete bench at the mortuary for more than three hours, holding the corpse in turns, as they waited to be attended to.
It took the intervention of human rights defenders, who were at the mortuary, to get Auma’s baby’s body booked. She explains; ”They took my child, but they did not put him in a fridge yet. I just hope that the body will be well preserved.”
She had first taken her son to Shofco Health Centre in Kibra after she realized he had fever. He was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was advised to take the child to Mbagathi Hospital after his condition worsened where he died while being attended to.
Together with her mother, they asked the doctor if they could get help to take the child to the mortuary but were instead told to go to the police post at KNH to get a clearance letter to take the baby to any mortuary. While walking to the mortuary, they only covered the corpse with a shawl. ”I only had Sh200 with me, which I used to pay the Boda Boda rider who took me to Mbagathi Hospital,” she explains.
The sad state of affairs at the mortuary has been contributed to by the Nairobi County workers’ strike, which began on Tuesday.