Town where death is an expensive affair

Paul Jalinga, a resident of Kakuma in Turkana West sub-county, vividly recalls the events of August 5, 2017, when he lost his brother at Kakuma Mission Hospital.

He keeps revisiting them in his head, clear in his mind that things could have been different if the circumstances had been different.

As he was still coming to terms with the news of the death of his brother, he was confronted with a big decision to make.

Either take his lifeless body — which was still warm and fresh — for burial immediately or fork out more money to transport his body 123km to the Lodwar County and Referral Hospital mortuary for preservation.

He chose the former.

It was the cheaper option, but were it up to him, he would have wanted more time to mourn his brother, plan his funeral and prepare a decent send-off as is the custom here.

“Relatives who were at the hospital agreed that we take our brother home and immediately after we arrived, a grave was dug and he was buried just before sunset,” he says.

This, he says, had, unfortunately, become the norm here.

Kakuma, a fast-growing town with a population of 450,000, including 210,000 refugees at the Kakuma refugee camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement, has no mortuary.

Here, death is an expensive affair.

Urgent facility

Locals often have to choose between burying their kin immediately after death or dig deep into their pockets to preserve the bodies in mortuaries.

Mr Jalinga, who is also a youth leader, said most elders die and are buried hurriedly without their peers witnessing or participating in the required rituals due to the vastness of the sub-county.

Another resident, Paul Esekon, said as much as the county government and development partners were investing in establishing more health facilities, the more urgent facility, he insists, is a mortuary.

“The situation is so bad that locals fear to take critically ill loved ones to hospital for fear of creating a harrowing experience for patients in wards who may witness death in wards or staying with bodies for a while,” he said.

Kakuma’s growth is partly due to devolution and greater investment by development partners in projects that benefit refugees and the host community, as well as the construction of the main road linking Kenya to South Sudan through Lokichoggio.

In some cases, and depending on the nature of deaths, local authorities must shoulder the expenses of transporting bodies for postmortem exams dozens of kilometres away.

In October 2017, five students and a night guard were killed in a brutal gun attack on Lokichoggio Mixed Secondary School. The perpetrator was a South Sudanese student who had been suspended from the school for indiscipline. The authorities had to shoulder the expenses of preserving the bodies.

Closure notice

The bodies were taken to a mortuary in Lodwar, 215km from Lokichoggio, and then returned later for burial. Top county leaders, led by Governor Josphat Nanok, were present for the funeral service.

Meanwhile, the county government in March served one private health facility in Kakuma with a closure notice, apparently for failing to comply with the practice and premises licence.

Seven other facilities were served with intimation notices in line with the provisions of CAP 242 of the Public Health Act of Kenya. They were putting locals at risk of contracting Covid-19 and other diseases resulting from poor sanitation and hygiene.

The Nation has observed that clinics are mushrooming in Kakuma, with some setting up private wards in temporary structures to exploit the negative opinion of services offered at existing public health facilities among middle-class locals.

Some of them present themselves as chemists but inside they operate like private hospitals.

Locals appealed to leaders in Turkana West sub-county and partners led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to push for the setting up of a mortuary in Kakuma because of its high population of refugees and locals.

Kakuma Ward Representative James Ekaran said when a death occurs leaders are always the first people that families go for help to take the body to or from a mortuary.