Yala Sub-County Mortuary was designed to handle only 16 bodies, given the close proximity to Kisumu and Siaya towns, which have bigger facilities. However, it has lately been receiving an unusually high number of bodies.
The many bodies retrieved from River Yala -- hardly two kilometres from the mortuary -- have meant that those who die in the hospital have nowhere to be preserved, and the stench is overwhelming due to the decomposing bodies taken out of the water.
Area residents would now rather have the bodies of their loved ones preserved far away, leading to a decline in revenues for the mortuary in Yala.
“While ordinarily, entering a mortuary is not something you want to do, the fact that the place is full of bodies collected from water in the worst of states makes it an agony to enter this mortuary. There is only so much the attendants can do to make them look better,” a medical officer at the hospital said, referring to the bodies retrieved from the river.
Siaya Governor Cornel Rasanga has called on the government to transfer the bodies taken from the river to City Mortuary in Nairobi, which he says is also better equipped to do the identification.
He regrets that the presence of the bodies has impaired service delivery at the mortuary, even as the attendants say the high number of detectives they receive seeking information about the victims makes them uncomfortable.
“Currently there are a total of 38 bodies at the Yala mortuary, out of which 24 are from the river, that number is way beyond the facility that has a capacity of only 16 bodies,” Mr Rasanga said.
“To date, the hospital has incurred Sh503,400 in the preservation of the bodies retrieved from River Yala, which continues to accrue on a daily basis. In addition, the county government has incurred other costs to support the ongoing investigations.”
“I strongly appeal to the national government, through its investigative agencies, to carry out in-depth investigations to unravel the circumstances under which these bodies ended up in the river,” said Mr Rasanga.
The governor also lamented the adverse environmental and public health impact of the gruesome discoveries.
Police officers at the Yala station, who have to dive into the water to get the bodies out, are traumatized.
“We pick bodies, some in such horrible condition that the images remain engrained in one’s memory for long. Counselling is needed,” said an officer on condition of anonymity.
“It is not unusual for a hospital located near a riparian area to get bodies. We have been receiving bodies from the time the morgue was constructed,” said Dr Bruno Okal, the medical superintendent at the Yala Sub County Hospital. “What was unusual was the surge in numbers.”
“We are not an investigative agency, but (we are) working in concert with other government agencies to provide any information to help bring the matter to a close. Three bodies have since been picked by relatives and buried,” said Dr Okal.
