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{
"id": 1522092,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522092/?format=api",
"text_counter": 98,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wafula",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 348,
"legal_name": "Davis Wafula Nakitare",
"slug": "davis-nakitare"
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"content": "better services. When we speak, people must listen and not only listening, they must understand that there must be value for money for the people of Kenya. I thank you."
},
{
"id": 1522093,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522093/?format=api",
"text_counter": 99,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Proceed, Sen. Methu."
},
{
"id": 1522094,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522094/?format=api",
"text_counter": 100,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Methu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13581,
"legal_name": "Methu John Muhia",
"slug": "methu-john-muhia"
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"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. Finally, I have been waiting because I want to make my comment. If you indulge me, Madam Temporary Speaker, I also want to thank you very much for leading us and the team from the Senate for the prayers that we had at Sen. Cheptumo's home. You have a lot of compassion and you led us well. You also led us when we went for his memorial earlier today at the Africa Inland Church (AIC), Milimani. Madam Temporary Speaker, to my understanding, the reason why this particular Statement has been sought by the Minority Whip is because yesterday, we had the Cabinet Secretary for Health. Amongst all the functions that have been devolved to counties, it is my opinion that the most critical of all the functions that have been devolved would be health. Therefore, just as my colleagues are wondering, I am also wondering why would the governors or county establishments take these matters very casually. In the Statement, Sen. Olekina has tried to diagnose the problem. There are two issues that are coming out very clearly, that counties are the end-users, especially of drugs and pharmaceutical products from KEMSA and they bear the blunt and burden, especially when the drugs do not get to the counties. Secondly, there is another critical matter. When drugs expire, and equipment that has been supplied by KEMSA are obsolete, or when they cannot be used by counties, who bears this brunt of paying for these particular services? It is the counties. Who are the counties? These are the people. Consequently, when the Exchequer releases are late, would you want to tell me that drugs can wait until we get the money from the Exchequer? It is not possible. The proposal that has been brought by Sen. Olekina is that let KEMSA be a supermarket. Pharmaceutical companies should bring their pharmaceutical products and if they have been used, then they can be paid. We pay for what we have used and not for what has been delivered. Sen. Wafula has correctly diagnosed this. Sometimes we, actually, pay for empty boxes. Madam Temporary Speaker, when you walk to our hospitals, there are no pharmaceutical products or medicine in hospitals. It is the same problem in every county. In fact, I was challenged by a young man that they went to see a doctor at a Level 3 hospital at a particular health facility and the only thing that was in that particular health facility that looked like medicine or a pharmaceutical product was the free condoms that are offered by the Government. It cannot be that we cannot take seriously the health of the people of Kenya. I have seen that there is a proposal and I do not know whether it has been brought either to this House or the National Assembly. There is a proposal that for public health facilities to be more effective and efficient, why can we not force leaders and civil servants to get services from public health facilities? This makes me think, now that there is no rule that requires or forces civil servants, leaders, politicians and the high and mighty in the society to take their children to public secondary schools, why is it that we 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": 1522095,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522095/?format=api",
"text_counter": 101,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Methu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13581,
"legal_name": "Methu John Muhia",
"slug": "methu-john-muhia"
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"content": "fight very hard to take our children to Mangu, Lenana or Alliance High school which are public schools? There is no rule that requires or forces us to take our children there. Why? This is because the services that are provided in those institutions of learning are so premium. Why can we not make services in our public health facilities as premium as those secondary schools, such that it will just be obvious that the easiest way of getting health services would be from public health facilities, because they are very good and have been made very well? Finally, I do not think we as a House have a deficiency in the laws and policies. Fingers cannot be pointed to the Senate saying that we are deficient of laws or policies. It must be remembered that this House has passed the Facility Improvement Financing law, so that all the monies that are collected in hospitals are used especially for those hospitals. If we have been able to help governors to that extent, why are we still struggling with issues to do with drugs in hospitals? Our county governors must ensure that they put their best foot forward, especially on this matter of health. Perhaps, on the issue of water, people can wait a week or two weeks, anyway they have been waiting since 1963. On the other issues of vocational training, may be people can wait or they can go to the neighbouring vocational training facility. However, for health, they cannot wait. You need that service there and then. When you need that medicine, it is there and then. If I am having a headache now and you want to provide the medicine next week, it will not be helpful. The utility of that medicine to me, as a person or user, will not be helpful by that time. I thank you."
},
{
"id": 1522096,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522096/?format=api",
"text_counter": 102,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Senator. Proceed Sen. Okiya Omtatah."
},
{
"id": 1522097,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522097/?format=api",
"text_counter": 103,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Good afternoon, Madam Temporary Speaker. I thank you for the opportunity to address this House on this important Statement. Matters of health in this country have gone south. There is, basically, nothing to write home about. Before even we discuss about the drugs, you might want to know the capacities of the personnel who are in these hospitals. You will be shocked that many hospitals are not properly manned and patients go there and are not given the treatment that they require. However, besides that, when we come to the question of drugs or medicine, you wonder why they have put in checks and controls and software, and ask for delivery notes. They might even want x-rays of patients who have swallowed those medicine. When we were growing up, there used to be a very simple method of ensuring that Government supplies are not stolen. It was called branding. A government panadol was inscribed with the letters “Government of Kenya (GOK)”, and so were Government gloves and bottles. What is so difficult for KEMSA to have manufacturers brand Government supplies so that it is inbuilt in the drug that you cannot steal it. You cannot go and take a drug from the Government store and put it in a private pharmacy. Why can that simple thing not be done? Why are we making life look so difficult? You can be sure that whoever removed that branding of Government stores was opening the floodgates for the theft we feel 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": 1522098,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522098/?format=api",
"text_counter": 104,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "today. It is not an accident that in this country, people who live in mansions are largely those who work with the Government, either as politicians, civil servants or Government contractors. You will hardly find any wealth being created away from the Government. It is not just in health, but in all other sectors. It is like the Kenyan taxpayer has totally nothing to protect them from the greed of those in power. So, I would urge that this House pushes for a policy whereby Government stores are branded. Let me go to the clinic and if I do not find drugs that the Government has supplied, let it be that the Government has not supplied. It should not be that I have gone to the clinic, the Government has supplied drugs, but somebody else has taken them out and put them into a private shop or pharmacy. Madam Temporary Speaker, I would urge that we try to do the common-sense thing. Let us go back and do the simple things that have worked. The third Point is on a request that we provide details on the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, currently in use at KEMSA disclosing its vendors. I saw Sen. Mandago mention a question of Kshs1 billion and how much it can do in terms of ERP. However, here we are spending a lot of money acquiring an ERP system under the Social Health Authority (SHA). The SHA is not supplying any product. They are supplying a platform, and it is running into billions of shillings. Inclusive of taxes, we are going to acquire an ERP to run the SHA system, which includes KEMSA and others, at a whooping Kshs104 billion! If that is taken against what Sen. Mandago, the Chairperson of the Committee submitted, then you will realize that we are just being scammed. There is no justification for these high costs that we get. The other day I was in Kilifi, and while interacting with the villagers in Tsangatsini, I came across a very sad story. The story was that a lady was bitten by a cobra, and a boda boda picked the lady up, put her on a motorcycle, and rushed her to the hospital in Mariakani, only for the lady to arrive, and she was asked whether she was registered with SHA or not, and they required the identity card. So, the boda boda had run back to look for the ID. By the time he came back, she had succumbed to the snake bite. That is how sorry the question of medicine is in this country. There is no humanity in the provision of health care in this country. You can die just because people do not understand that you are a human being. There is something called emergency healthcare, which is a right. You must get emergency health care when you need it. When you go to my county of Busia, nothing is working. The hospitals are not working. There are no drugs. The medical personnel are demoralized. Nothing seems to work. There was a case in Amukura dispensary where a woman who was to deliver twins died because they did not seem to know that she was carrying twins. I do not know how that happened. She delivered one child, the other child remained in the womb, and it led to complications which led to the death of this lady. It was during postmortem they discovered that she had another child who had remained in the womb. How does that happen in a Government hospital? How can you not know that a mother is carrying two or three babies? What is happening in this country is very sad and unacceptable. In my county of Busia, the big shame is that people are flocking across the border into Uganda, into Buteba to get treatment. Kenyans who live near the border are crossing 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": 1522099,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522099/?format=api",
"text_counter": 105,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "the border into Buteba and Tororo in Uganda, to get attention, yet we have hospitals. Busia is a frontier county, and not just a frontier county of any nature, but a frontier county to the East and Central Africa region, where we have got occasional outbreaks of very bad diseases like Ebola. My expectation would be that the national Government would be running serious laboratories and surveillance systems in Busia to protect the Republic from any entry of patients who might be carrying these contagious diseases. However, nothing is working. There has been no attention given. Madam Temporary Speaker, in terms of Mother and Child Care (MCC), our Level 4 hospitals are just death traps. Very many women in Busia County are dying in childbirth. Why should that be the case? This is the case because health is totally neglected. It has become an area for merchants to make wealth, to steal public resources, and it is very easy to steal through the healthcare system. So, I pray that this House considers some very stern measures to intervene in health. As regards human personnel, during the process of making the Kenya Constitution,2010 there had been created a National Health Service Commission to operate nationally to take care of the needs of medical personnel. The Parliamentary Service Committee in Naivasha removed the provision of the National Health Service Commission. It undertook in writing, and it is in the record, that Parliament would establish that Commission through legislation to take care of the needs of medical personnel nationally. Doctors could then move across the country and cross around to give them the chance to go on sabbatical leave and whatever. You will find that the county is so tiny for somebody who takes so long to train to comfortably operate in. So, the lack of interest in their work that most of the medical personnel exude is largely because there is hopelessness there. The chances of growth are not there because you are packaged into a small county, and you answer to people who may not even understand what your needs are. I would be urging this House that we consider going back and cashing that promissory note that we gave to the doctors. Parliament undertook to establish a National Health Commission so that doctors are not subjected to counties. It is in writing, the reports are there, we are now going to the 14th or 15th year since the promulgation of the Constitution, nothing has happened. As my contribution to this Statement, I would also urge that we look at the human resource, and how it is managed. It is very clear that the county governments cannot handle the human resources in the medical sector. Let the county governments maybe run the hospitals, but let us set up that Commission, which was removed by Parliament from the draft constitution, with an undertaking that they are going to establish that commission through an Act of Parliament. Let us proceed and create the equivalent of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for the medical sector, so that doctors can be hired centrally in Nairobi, dispersed across the country centrally, and transferred and moved across so that they can gain experience wherever and go on sabbatical leave, progress in their careers, have hope and be cushioned from the question of counties not having money and not being able to pay. 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": 1522100,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522100/?format=api",
"text_counter": 106,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "I support this Motion, and---"
},
{
"id": 1522101,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522101/?format=api",
"text_counter": 107,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " It is a Statement, Senator and, please, wind up your remarks so that we can move on."
}
]
}