Two orphaned daughters have been in agony following the death of their father who passed away in a hospital in Nairobi.
The two Maureen Muchiri (25) and Angeline Muchiri (22) were presented with a Ksh3.3 Million bill after their father James Muchiri Mwangi died 18 days after he was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) following a mild stroke.
"We have appealed to the hospital management, the local administration and wellwishers to help give him a better send off," a family representative told Kenyans.co.ke.
The tragedy occurred two years after the mother of the girls succumbed to sickle cell leukemia (blood cancer) in 2018 at the same hospital.
The family representative explained that the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) paid out Ksh 770,000 leaving a deficit of Ksh2.5 Million. Friends' contributions through WhatsApp groups and Safaricom paybill amounted to Ksh320,000.
In a letter to Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDU), the family appealed for assistance from the organisation in having their father's body released.
"Our father's body has been in the morgue for more than a month and the mortuary bill is accumulating and we are not sure until when," Maureen the older of the two stated in the letter.
The organisation responded writing to the hospital over the detention of the body. KMPDU CEO Daniel Yumbya stated that it was unethical for doctors at health institutions to detain patients for payment of fees.
"The code advises that legal means should be used to recover the said fees. From this, one can surmise that it is equally unethical to detain a body of a deceased due to non-payment of any fee," Dr. Yumbya stated.
The courts have issued several pronouncements on the issue of detention of bodies of deceased persons pending clearance of bills. Notably, in the Petition No 407 of 2012, the presiding judge stated that dead bodies are for interment or cremation or other disposal without delay.
"The disputed is on a debt of medical services solicited by someone who is still alive, not the deceased, and there are legal ways of binding such persons to pay the debt owed.
"The body of the deceased ought not to be part of the equation. It is trite law that there is no property in a dead body. It cannot be offered or held as security for payment of the debt," the ruling read in part.
