Kenya: Govt Orders All Morticians to Be Registered By End of the Month

Nairobi — The government has ordered that all morticians be registered and licensed by the end of the month.

According to the Kenya Health Professions Oversight Authority (KHPOA), this will ensure a high standard of professionalism is maintained in the sector.

A representative of the AuthorityDominic Wambua stated that “to be registered you must have undergone thorough training from recognized health institutions,” said Dominic Wambua, a representative from KHPOA.

The authority has been mapping and registering morticians since last year and about 500 morticians have so far received formal training.

KHPOA has been working closely with the Morticians and Allied Professionals Association of Kenya (MAPAKe) to ensure all morticians are trained and registered as health professionals.

KHPOA, MAPAKe and The Nairobi Women’s Hospital came together today to commemorate the World Mortician Recognition Day which is celebrated every 11th of March.

This is the first time in Kenya that such an event has been held with this year’s theme being “The Last Responders”.

At the moment, there are only certificate programmes for teaching and training morticians at different training institutions.

MAPAKe partnered with two public universities late last year to roll out diploma programmes for morticians in the country.

The number of institutions planning to offer diploma courses for morticians has since increased.

“We have done a revision of the curriculum and we will soon offer diploma courses for morticians,” said a representative from Nanyuki Teaching and Referral Hospital.

MAPAKe says that through the registering and licensing of morticians there is hope to clean the image of morticians and in the long run weed out quacks who continue to taint the image of their profession.

“We are out here to put up a profession that has been verified and so we do not want people with fake papers in the field,” said MAPAKe.

By Capital FM.