Morgue attendants in Thika down tools
Mourners were left stranded at General Kago Funeral Home in Thika, Kiambu for the better part of Tuesday after mortuary attendants downed their tools over unpaid salaries.
The attendants claimed Kiambu County government has for the last five months not been remitting money to Thika Level 5 Hospital that in turn channels money to them.
“We have not been paid our salaries for five months now. We are unable to feed our families. We earn very little compared to the nature of our work and the county government of Kiambu has been promising that it would pay us. We have decided not to discharge our duties for free unless we are paid,” one attendant said on condition of anonymity.
Kiambu CEC for Health Joseph Murega was not available for comments by the time of publishing this story.
General Kago Funeral Home manager Mr John Matere last month told Daily Nation that the mortuary had more than 200 unclaimed bodies whose disposal was a challenge for them.
“We are overstretched because we have many unclaimed bodies. We have not been able to dispose the bodies because of the limited resources. The situation is very bad,” Mr Matere told Daily Nation.
Most of the unclaimed bodies are those picked from accident scenes or those suspected to be of murder victims.
Kiambu County government has been struggling to pay its employees with the most affected being health workers who have now gone for three months without pay.
Governor James Nyoro has been blaming delayed salaries on low revenue and delay by the National Treasury to release money to the county.