The name of the course sounds ominous and scary — Diploma in Mortuary Science.
It involves three years of study, talking about death mostly, and a lifetime of working around the departed. It is a course you can smell. With that chilling backdrop, you would think the public could only touch it with a 100-foot pole, right?
The uptake of the course introduced at the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) from the March 2023 intake has shocked many. Whereas the initial assigned capacity was 50, and only in Nairobi, it has currently been oversubscribed and necessitated the spread to other campuses.
In the applications for this year’s March uptake, KMTC had received more than 250 applications a day to the February 14 deadline for applying through the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS).
“Initially, in Nairobi, we had envisioned only training 50, but the kind of requests we are having from the public is increasing, and we are unable to even meet the demands of those who are seeking to train in this area,” KMTC’s chief executive officer, Dr Kelly Oluoch, told Nation.Africa.
The first cohort that took up the course, Dr Oluoch said, will be graduating this year.
Professionals to the rescue
“They’re doing final qualifying exams right now,” he said on Thursday. “They already have contacts of where they want to go and work after completion of the training because most of the mortuaries across the countries are run down because of lack of professionals and lack of standards in the management and practice of mortuary science.”
Once that group and the subsequent trainees enter the market, he said, the days of morgues being run by disinterested addicts could be ending.
“This field has been dominated by untrained personnel who have been picked from all over and have not been able to offer a satisfactory service,” said Dr Oluoch. “(For the longest time) the only qualification you needed was some level of courage to handle dead bodies. To enhance that courage, somebody would have to either smoke bhang or perennially be drunk.”
Dr Oluoch also noted that some hospitals have been known to assign mortuary work to some of their wayward employees as part of disciplinary measures.
“So, they would come when they want and leave when they want. At the same time, they didn’t have any customer care skills. They would, for example, hurl abuses at mourners and they would basically handle bodies in such a way that even the mourners would be scared to visit funeral homes,” said Dr Oluoch.
Meru Teaching and Referral Hospital mortuary on January 23, 2023.
Photo credit: David Muchui I Nation Media Group
“But now we want to reverse this,” he added. “We want to make sure that, for example, embalming of bodies (injecting a fluid into a body to slow decomposition) is well done. Morgues need not smell. You don’t need to go into a morgue and your image is bodies decomposing on the floor and an acrid smell emanating from all over.”
One of the prospective mortuary science students is Hellen Wangui Njoki, who currently works as a guard at KMTC’s Nakuru campus. She first got interested in the field when an annual meeting of morticians happened in Nakuru in 2023.
“When they came here, they motivated me because earlier, I used to fear this course,” she said.
“I am looking forward to it because … I want to handle bodies like any other human being; to their last respects,” she said.
Another of the interested students is Hezinat Moraa, a teenager fresh from high school. We found her at the KMTC campus in Nakuru on Friday as she had come to make inquiries on how to join.
“First, mortuary science has a market. Then, not many people like it. So, it is marketable both in and outside (the country). And many people fear it,” she said when asked why she is interested.
“The reason I’m not scared is that, for now, I can’t go to a mortuary because I’m not experienced. But when I have that knowledge, I’ll be there to show that I’ve studied it,” said Hezinat.
She went on: “My motivation is to try something new; to be unique somehow because in the field of medicine, people want to specialise in nursing and such. So, you become congested on the field. You become many and so the competition is high. You can succeed or not. So, if you get a course like this mortuary science, you might go all the way to an interview. So, it is advantageous. Also, what motivates me more is going abroad (to work).”
The growing interest towards mortuary studies is commensurate with the increase in businesses that offer preservation, body dressing and other services for the departed.
Death is a multi-million-shilling industry as families spare no expenses to give their loved ones a befitting farewell.
Says the Business Research Company: “The (global) death care services market size has grown strongly in recent years. It will grow from $127.83 billion in 2024 to $138.74 billion in 2025.”
Dr Oluoch said that apart from being given technical capacity, mortuary science trainees are given managerial capabilities “that enable them to run funeral homes”.
“With the management and the entrepreneurial knowledge, they could also start their own funeral homes. There are places in this country where funeral homes don’t exist, and when people die in the village, they are just buried without being accorded proper preservation,” he said.
The other capabilities that mortuary science trainees are given is how to handle bodies of infectious disease victims and those that are badly damaged. They are also trained on collecting samples during post-mortems.
“There are certain causes of death that make bodies to be badly mutilated. For example, bodies that come from very severe accidents, bodies that emanate from acid burns, high levels or high degrees of burns, and bodies that have decomposed before being discovered. Relatives and friends of the departed have received very poor services because of untrained personnel in this area,” said Dr Oluoch.
Regarding deaths that occur from infectious diseases like Covid-19, Dr Oluoch said: “(The course) is supposed to support and eliminate infections that may be emerging from contaminated bodies which have departed because of highly contagious diseases.”
The course was first offered in Nairobi but KMTC has since spread it to its Kisumu and Mombasa campuses.
“Because the demand is so high and the counties are now starting to even advertise for positions of mortuary attendants, we have also started it in Kakamega; we’ve started in Bondo, and very soon we’ll be doing another one in Nakuru,” said the KMTC boss.
KMTC said in a Facebook post on February 11 that the course was a result of research by Health ministry players.
“A 2018–2021 study by senior lecturers at the University of Nairobi and pathologists from Kenyatta National Hospital highlighted significant gaps in the training and practice of morticians. The mortician training programme equips students with the skills and mindset to handle human remains with care, respect, and professionalism. Graduates are prepared to work both in Kenya and internationally,” it said.
