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{
"id": 1407841,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Ogola",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "We should not allow our mothers to continue dying while in the process of securing continuity of our future generations. Madam Temporary, Speaker, I request Sen. Crystal Asige to second this Bill. I thank you."
},
{
"id": 1407842,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407842/?format=api",
"text_counter": 421,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker, for this opportunity to second this Bill; the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Bill, 2023. I feel privileged to stand here to second this Bill because I am a person who will be assisted when a time comes for me to make a decision to have a child and build a family. I am not a mother yet. The Mover of this Bill is one of my biggest encouragers to start a family. She keeps asking when I will start a family. I want to tell her today, in front of all Kenyans as I second this Bill, that the reason I have not started a family of my own is because of personal fears and doubts of readiness to be a mother of a child or children with my visual disability. Moreover, my own fears are relayed by examples that I have seen with women and girls who are pregnant with disabilities and giving birth in our healthcare systems. The atrocious treatment that they sometimes get has scared me out of making this decision of starting my own family as a young woman with visual impairment. However, I am glad to stand and support this Bill because I know when enacted, it will help people like me allay some of these fears. The principal objective of the Bill is to propose a legal framework through which delivery of high quality maternal, newborn and child health services can be enhanced, addressing the morbidity and mortality among mothers with children and ensuring access to health rights for us, as well as any other matters related to maternal newborn and health. It also seeks to provide a platform for raising the profile for maternal health services. Provide a framework for formal engagement, cooperation and promotion of coordinated approaches to service delivery between the National and the county Governments. Enhance accountability and social funding for these health services."
},
{
"id": 1407843,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407843/?format=api",
"text_counter": 422,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1407844,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407844/?format=api",
"text_counter": 423,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "A salient feature of this Bill is that it highlights the importance of access to quality health care and education by the public. Paying special attention to minorities, at risk people, marginalised communities and people with special needs. This demographic has historically had extenuating challenges in accessing quality and non-discriminatory maternal health care. Madam Temporary Speaker, additionally, the inclusion of Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in interventions will go a long way in making sure that provisions for the maternal, new born and child health services are delivered with due sensitivity towards cultures of various communities, to ensure adaptability, acceptability and other reasons that we always see across the country. According to the latest Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS), as a Nation, we currently enjoy decreased mortality rates for children compared to the last three decades. This trend shows tremendous progress. Yet, there are still so many things to be done. Kenya’s current mortality rate amongst children is 41 deaths per 1000 live births for under five-year olds and 21 deaths per 1000 live births for neonates most of which are preventable causes. With the world average at 38 deaths per 1,000 alive births for under five-year olds and 18 deaths per 1,000 for neonates, there is clearly still a need for targeted interventions for the Ministry of Health (MoH) to adhere to as well as relevant State Departments to solve. Upon analysis of this Bill, it is clear that the focus is on interventions meant to bring us closer to the world average in line with our commitment to Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) of 21 per 1000 under-fives and 12 per 1000 neonates. Of course, we have a long way to go and wish for even less than that in future. Hopefully, that will happen through the enactment and implementation of this Bill. Madam Temporary Speaker, Sir, I bring to your attention some specific provisions that will benefit from clearer definitions or additional information in this Bill. I hope that my sponsor is behind me taking notes. In Section 2, the definition of person with special needs could benefit from the additional of physical and neo-diverse, as one of the categories of people with special needs. They are of course, a particular category of people with disabilities that are not often understood and therefore, not often catered for in our legislation. Further, on this note, I also request the sponsor to refrain from using the terms “persons with special needs” and instead use “Persons with Disabilities”. That is jut in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), as well as the African Charter on Disability that, we are now signatories to since Constitution 2010. Of course, we need to be in line with more palatable definitions of person with disabilities. I also call upon the Sponsor to consider adding a section that gives provisions to create a separate mental health wing in all maternal health facilities especially, for women and girls with disabilities to access and use. This is because, women and girls with disabilities require a specialised support in the area of prenatal care, postpartum depression, anxiety and so on."
},
{
"id": 1407845,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407845/?format=api",
"text_counter": 424,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1407846,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407846/?format=api",
"text_counter": 425,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "That as you can imagine, require a very different health service delivery approach along side other specially trained medical workers who understand the needs of women and girls with disabilities. This is in addition to ensuring well trained medical workers in the care of women and girls with disabilities. I also wish to see the Sponsor add to the Bill, a strict requirement that, these maternity health facilities provide mobility aids and assistive devices. These includes but are not limited to - walking sticks, crutches, walking frames, wheelchairs, hearing aids, screen readers, talking devices and healthcare literature in accessible formats so that, all women and girls with disabilities who are using these services understand and be assisted by them. Madam Temporary Speaker, in addition, these facilities across the board must reduce barriers to adequate healthcare by also providing accessible hospital beds as well as disabled toilets, showers and hot baths for women and girls with disabilities, specifically to maintain their dignity. To the sponsor of this Bill, these provisions must be made in black and white and not assumed because we know what happens when you assume. I cannot say it here because it is not parliamentary language, but we know what happens when you assume. I also want the sponsor to think about what happens to these women and girls with disabilities once they are discharged from the labour ward and are sent home with their child, twins, triplets or quadruplets. I want the Bill to provide for trained disability social workers or community health promoters to be making frequent visits to the homes of these women and girls. This is to ensure quality home-based care and needs assessment, especially, in the formative weeks of the children’s lives. It is important to keep supporting these women as the sponsor has said but women and girls with disabilities need specific and nuanced support when they go home with their children. Madam Temporary Speaker, recognizing our extenuating mobility and movement challenges in public service vehicles as a barrier to seek out services physically after being discharged is also another reason why. Creating for the social workers to leave hospitals and visit us directly at home will exponentially improve our response services that could avoid or completely arrest fast deteriorating conditions of the new-borns that we have taken home. Early intervention services are desperately lacking in our country, and we need to have this provision added into the Bill through the sponsor. Section 20(2)(d) provides for priority groups but there is no definition of who these groups are in the interpretation of the Bill. This leaves room for ambiguity as it is open to many interpretations. I therefore request the sponsor to clear this up before the Bill comes back to the Floor for the next Reading, with the express definition provided therein. Section 9 of the marginal notes addresses services for women with special needs specifically, Section 9(1)(d) which addresses at-risk persons. The note should therefore in my view read, “services for women with disabilities and at-risk persons.”"
},
{
"id": 1407847,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407847/?format=api",
"text_counter": 426,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Sen. Asige, you have five minutes."
},
{
"id": 1407848,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407848/?format=api",
"text_counter": 427,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1407849,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407849/?format=api",
"text_counter": 428,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. Next in the proposed provisions in the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Bill is on birth attendants, and I note the focus on healthcare providers and trained birth attendants. Unfortunately, this for me excludes the traditional birth attendants in our homes and villages in Kenya who operate without medical licenses, but whose expertise and experiences are needed to advance the access of safe maternal care in order to reach marginalized communities. I also hope the sponsor takes this into account. Another section in this Bill that provides a clear frame work should be created that will include the traditional birth attendants to cater to sensitization of their role as healthcare workers; include them in both the national and county governments and provide an avenue through which these traditional health workers can be registered. Madam Temporary Speaker, we can see the doctors’ strike and the sponsor has mentioned it. We have seen over 50 children with disabilities die since the strike started because as parents and caregivers of children with disabilities, we cannot access healthcare services, hospital beds, our service providers and our therapists, so on and so forth. It is a shame when we see mothers, parents, caregivers, or families losing their small children with disabilities because of lack of healthcare. Madam Temporary Speaker, as I finish, a pertinent issue that we need to address is on matters of service delivery and access to health services. Clause 11(h), states that- “The National Government and county governments shall, in respect of maternal, neonatal and child health care, put in place measures to facilitate the provision of- the infrastructure necessary to support the delivery of basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and neonatal care services”. Clause 25(2), the same governments are obligated to make regulations that prescribe minimum standards for a number of services of which the above is not included. I propose that such regulations prescribing minimum standards necessary for carrying out functions of this proposed Bill should also include the provision of the infrastructure necessary to support the delivery of basic and comprehensive emergency obstetrics and neonatal services. Madam Temporary Speaker, I want to close there because of time. However, I hope that some of these suggestions and proposals I have made as I stand to support and second this Bill, will be taken into account. This will ensure both non-disabled and disabled women and girls have the appropriate maternal healthcare that they deserve so that we can continue also contributing to the growth of this country. I thank you."
},
{
"id": 1407850,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407850/?format=api",
"text_counter": 429,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Can you second?"
}
]
}