Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 806031,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/806031/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 94,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "especially Members of Parliament, do not have faith in our healthcare system. So, we continue to pay for expensive trips to India and America. No wonder we can never really take our time and ask ourselves these hard questions: What are we doing wrong? What pesticides are our people being exposed to that are exposing us to cancer? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you go to Narok County, there is a place called Emburbutia or Caanan, in Loita Forest, people die there on a daily basis of cancer and kidney failure because of what they are exposed to. It is high time, with the death of our colleague, for us to really ask ourselves these hard questions: How do we deal with cancer? If we are serious about saving lives in the memory of our departed brother, we should set up the Cancer Research Fund. I hope the Treasury is listening because if we establish that Fund, we can allocate money to it and educate our people on how to detect and prevent cancer. We have data on foods like broccoli, cabbage, that you can eat to prevent cancer. We need to impart this information to our people. The reason why this House is in a somber mood today is because one of us has left us. Kenyans are dying on a daily basis of this epidemic called cancer yet there is nothing we are doing. It is about time that we helped those people who cannot be given an opportunity like the one we are giving our departed brother. We can help them avoid cancer by equipping our hospitals for cancer to be detected early. It is time that this Parliament concentrated on developing legislation to that end. Last week, I spoke of a Coroners Bill that was passed by the National Assembly. If that Bill is fully implemented, it will give us an opportunity to detect the strains of cancer or the type of diseases that are killing Kenyans. Kenyans agree and accept when someone dies but if we want to change, it is about time that we invested our money and time in developing legislations that can help us pursue and follow through to see what type of diseases are killing Kenyans because, just being told that your colleague has died because of cancer does not help us. We have Acts of Parliament but the problem is that we do not implement them. If we implement the Coroners Bill, when someone dies and a postmortem is done, we can tell the type of cancer that has killed that person. It is a sad day today and I hope that the people of Migori County will know that we are all passersby for it is like running a race. Our dear brother happened to be in front of us and he won today but it could be me tomorrow. For posterity and continuity in this country, we must interrogate the amount of money that we invest in healthcare. It is not enough for us to lease expensive medical equipment yet no one is using them. For us, when we fall sick, we board a plane and either go to India, the United States of America or Pakistan because we can afford that but let us now try to focus on how we can help our brothers and sisters who cannot even afford to come to a hospital in Nairobi. With those many remarks, I pray that the Almighty God rests my dear brother, Sen. Okello, in peace."
}