Individuals wait to pick dead bodies of loved ones at St Francis Funeral Home in Busia County, Kenya January 19, 2024. PHOTO/DAVID AWORI
A significant number of Ugandans are turning to Kenyan mortuaries for embalming and preservation services due to inadequate facilities in their own country. In districts such as Busia, Namayingo, Bugiri, and Tororo, local mortuaries often lack essential amenities like cold rooms and sufficient space.
Health authorities in Tororo District have asked the government to construct a bigger and modern mortuary to accommodate more bodies and provide better services. In a telephone interview on April 14y, Ms Connie Bwire, the Tororo District Health Officer, said the mortuary they are currently using can only accommodate six bodies and they use only formalin to preserve the bodies that can only be stored for a week.
"The mortuary we have at Tororo General Hospital, which doubles as the district hospital, is old and dilapidated. It can store a maximum of six bodies because the space is small, we don't have a fridge, so we keep adding formalin. Our biggest problem is space," she said.
Her comment yesterday followed reports last week during a fundraising dinner for the reconstruction of St Anthony Hospital in the same district that Ugandans living in the border towns with Kenya now prefer taking the bodies of their dead relatives to be kept in Kenyan mortuaries as they prepare for a decent sendoff of their loved ones.
“...I have heard that many people from Eastern Uganda are crossing dead bodies to Busia Kenya to keep them there for as long as they can as they make burial arrangements because Kenya has good mortuaries,” he said.
Asked why Ugandans prefer taking their deceased relatives to Kenyan mortuaries, how long the bodies spend there, and the cost of embalming the bodies, Mr George Ofwono, an IT specialist working with the hospital, produced a documentary showing the current sorry state of the hospital. He said in the whole of Eastern Uganda, it is only Mbale Regional Referral Hospital which has a semblance of a mortuary but even then, their services are not up to date.
“This has been going on for a very long time in the entire Eastern Region, it is only Mbale Regional Referral Hospital that has mortuary services, and all the health centres in Bugisu, Bugweri, Sebei, depend on it,” he said.
Last Thursday, the Tororo Archdiocese Development Association of the Laity (TADAL) organised a fundraising dinner to mobilise Shs1.7b towards the reconstruction of the facilities at the hospital, which previously acted as the regional centre of excellence for healthcare in Eastern Uganda.
According to Dr Henry Naklet Opolot, the chairman of TADAL, St Anthony’s Hospital was established in 1960 by the Franciscan Nuns as a non-profit health facility in Tororo District, and because it was offering free services, most of the infrastructure deteriorated and it now requires replacement and construction of new ones.
“When the current Archbishop of Tororo Archdioceses took over office, the people of Tororo demanded reconstruction of the hospital. It needs an outpatient department, new wards, theatres, male and female wards, intensive care units and we also need to equip it with vital equipment,” he said.
Fundraising drive
The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Anita Among, led a group of Members of Parliament. Who come from the Eastern region for the fundraising drive, thanked the Catholic Church for establishing the hospital, saying while growing up, she had fond memories of the hospital and it was one of the reasons she was motivated to construct a nursing school and teaching hospital in her constituency.
Unlike Uganda where relatives burry the deceased almost immediately after death due to lack of functional mortuaries, in Kenya, burial of deceased persons can be delayed since the bodies can be kept away to allow relatives plan for a decent sendoff.
