Murder, suicide and mob injustice are the prime causes of death of most people whose bodies end up unclaimed in Nairobi morgues.
Other prime causes of the deaths of the unclaimed bodies include accidents, natural, electrocution, drowning and sudden death.
According to a public notice released by the Nairobi County Government on Sunday, there are 193 unclaimed bodies in two leading city morgues.
The notice by acting county secretary Patrick Analo revealed there are 169 unclaimed bodies at the City Mortuary and 24 at Mama Lucy Hospital.
This raises concern about the prevalence of mental health problems in Nairobi.
Nairobi and Central regions have the highest number of mental illness cases, data by the Ministry of Health showed.
The data presented to the Senate Health Committee in March 2022 revealed that depressive disorder is the most common type of mental illness in the country.
Analysis of the Sunday, September 24, 2023 notice shows that out of the 193 unclaimed declared, 183 are men while 10 are females.
The City mortuary had six female dead bodies while 163 were males.
At Mama Lucy four are females and 20 are males.
Failure to claim the bodies, Nairobi County will dispose them of in seven days.
Negligence by police and unwilling family members have been blamed for the high number of unclaimed bodies at City Mortuary.
Head of City Mortuary David Wanjohi in a past interview with the Star said some police officers fail to take fingerprints of the deceased, hence no follow-up.
Families have also been blamed for the rise of unclaimed bodies as they leave the deceased for the morgue attendants to deal with them.
"There are people who never bother to claim the bodies of their relatives. Some families come and after identifying the bodies give us the go-ahead to dispose them of," he said.
"Some families also give wrong phone numbers once they bring the bodies to the morgue and when the morgue attendants reach out to them, they ignore the calls. With no option left, the bodies are retained in the morgue."
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.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja said 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 nine are supposed to be replaced. At the moment, City Hall has already replaced six.
