A mother is forced to carry her baby’s corpse due to nurse’s strike.

A mother’s love truly knows no bounds, she would go to the ends of the world for her child in a heartbeat. To have to endure what a mother yesterday went through is both a story of heroism and literal heartbeak. No parent should have to bury their child , but to be forced to carry his corpse because of a strike is nothing less of inhumaity.

A mother was yesterday forced to carried the body of her baby for about 5km to a mortuary because officials at a city hospital where the boy died could not help transport it. Immaculate Auma had to undergo the excruciating journey from Mbagathi Hospital, where her six-month-old baby died yesterday morning, to a police post at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), where she was required to file a notification.

All the while cradling the lifeless body, the grieving mother  had to walk back to City Mortuary, where attendants kept her waiting for hours. Auma and her mother Linet Atieno sat on the cold concrete bench at the mortuary for more than three hours, holding the corpse in turns, as they waited to be attended to.They could not afford to take the body to a private mortuary.

“We came at around 10.30am and did not find anyone, so we sat on the bench,” said Atieno. It took the intervention of media and human rights defenders, who were at the mortuary, to get her baby’s body booked.“What if she was traumatised and got knocked by a vehicle while walking to this place,” one of the activists posed. After the protests, a mortuary attendant offered to help Auma.“They took my child, but they did not put him in a fridge yet. I just hope that the body will be well preserved,” she said.

This is one of many such incidences that have probably gone unreported and the sad state of affairs at the mortuary has been contributed to by the Nairobi County workers’ strike, which began on Tuesday.The mortuary is under the management of Nairobi County Government.

The child died while being attended to at Mbagathi Hospital.“I immediately called my mother and she came to the hospital,” Auma said. She said they asked the doctor for assistance in taking the child to the mortuary. They could not get any. Instead, they were told to go to the police post at KNH to get a clearance letter to take the baby to any mortuary.

“After we finished all the formalities with the police at Kenyatta, we were told to take the body of my grandchild and proceed to City Mortuary,” Mrs Atieno said, adding that even the police did not help them take the corpse to the mortuary. Atieno and Auma, while walking to the mortuary, only covered the corpse with a shawl. “I only had Sh200 with me, which I used to pay the Boda Boda rider who took me to Mbagathi Hospital,” Atieno said.

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