City Mortuary is undergoing rehabilitation in a bid to transform it into a dignified facility.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja on Wednesday told the Star that works at the facility were already underway.
"Restoring dignity to our dearly departed and their families by improving the City Mortuary as well as our cemeteries. The contractor is on-site," he said.
Works include the installation of new cooling units, cold room doors, and drainage works which is complete.
In October 2021, City Mortuary official David Wanjohi told the Star that the morgue is in need of new freezers as the existing ones often break down, costing hundreds of thousands to repair.
Wanjohi said despite the morgue having 14 freezers, seven of them are meant to be standby freezers.
As a result, Chief Officer, Public Health Tom Nyakaba told the Star that a contractor is already on site to ensure all coolers are repaired and restored to excellent working condition.
" This is to give proper and dignified services to Nairobians who have lost their loved ones. Under Governor Sakaja's leadership, we will ensure those who have lost their loved ones are treated with respect as a mark of last respect," he said.
According to a city mortuary report dated April 5, 2023, Nairobi's main public morgue has 142 cooling units but only 33 are in use.
Sakaja noted that in order to keep work at the morgue flowing, 63 cooling units will be installed to bridge the gap.
The morgue has 19 cold room doors of which 9 are supposed to be replaced. At the moment, City Hall has already replaced 6.
Going further, the County's Public Participation, Public Engagement and Customer Service Chief Officer, Lydia Mathia revealed that her department would employ five customer service officers to handle customer care matters in the facility.
"A funeral gives friends and relatives an opportunity to express the love and respect they feel for someone who was important to them," she said.
For starters, Mathia said the morgue will have five officers deployed to the county funeral home to assist with recording admissions and receiving clients.
This will also increase client public awareness and knowledge of how the funeral process works and assist the family deal with the loss experienced in a dignified manner
To beef up security, the county government will increase the number of officers from six to 10 at the morgue
City mortuary was built in 1958 and had the capacity to accommodate only six bodies then but as the years went by, it was expanded and now it can hold 176 bodies
In 2016, coolers at the facility broke down for weeks causing a disaster.
By then 14 machines were running the coolers but only five were in good condition.
The declining fortunes of the City Mortuary had been attributed to its dilapidated state.
The morgue was at some point associated with stench and poor services.
However, the facility has since undergone renovations under the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Service in 2021