Two women who work as mortuary attendants at Mbagathi hospital were on Friday arraigned before court for allegedly releasing bodies to families at a ‘fee’ without them paying pending hospital bills.
Elizabeth Aoga and Jackline Njagi, were arraigned alongside Jackline Owino a staff from the registry department.
According to police reports, the three are part of a syndicate that has been swindling money from the hospital by enabling relatives of deceased patients not to pay bills but instead pay incentives to them then the bodies are released to the relatives.
They were charged with conspiracy to commit a felony, giving false information, and demanding money with menace.
According to the charge sheet, on December 5 last year obtained money from Ann Mbugua intended for clearing the hospital bill of James Mbugua.
The three denied the charges before Magistrate BenMark Ekhubi and were released on a cash bail of Sh 100,000 each.
Reports claim that the two approached Ann after the death of her father James claiming that they could help her not pay the outstanding Sh 61,000 bill but she would part with something and the body would be released to her.
Investigations revealed a coordinated scheme involving the two mortuary attendants, who demanded Sh 30,000 in exchange for facilitating a waiver of the hospital bill.
Additionally, with the assistance of Jackline Owino from the Health Records Department, they obtained a burial permit and released the body.
When they realized that the hospital had known their scheme they used James tag on an unclaimed body telling police officers that James was still in the morgue.
Police took the dead person’s fingerprints and that’s when they realized that it was not James and upon investigations it was revealed that James had already been buried at Langata Cemetery.
