Health Officials who buried the wrong body in Kisasi village, Shamakhokho location were forced to exhume a cleric’s body on Saturday night at 9pm, August 1.
According to sources, the officials had buried the body of a man believed to be Covid-19 negative instead of that of Linus Simwa, a member of the clergy and chair of the Vihiga Referral Hospital board, who had tested positive for the disease.
Morgue attendants noticed the error only after the man’s family came for the body.
The attendants could not locate it. But to their dismay, they noticed that the cleric’s body which was supposed to have been buried was still at the mortuary.
They contacted the health officials who had to go back and exhume the body.
“Several rituals had to be performed because we do not know the man who had been buried here,” Shamakhokho location chief Modlyn Imbayi stated.
Imbayi also added that it was a strange encounter for a family to bury the wrong body in the area.
Simwa had succumbed to Covid-19 on Wednesday, July 29 at the Vihiga Referral Hospital while the second man had died shortly after being admitted at the hospital.
They were both placed in body bags and taken to the morgue.
On the other hand, families of those succumbing to the virus have been forced to pay extra expenses after the facilities increased body storage charges.
The additional charges have been bestowed on the families because the bodies need to be fumigated and disinfected in line with the Ministry of Health guidelines.
In a past press briefing, Acting Health Director Dr Patrick Amoth explained that the Personal Protective Equipment took up 80% of the treatment charges.
“PPE’s are only used once and then disposed,” Dr. Amoth stated.
So far, Kenya has recorded 22, 597 positive cases. 8,740 patients have recovered while 382 have succumbed.