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{
    "id": 1021666,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1021666/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 242,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nyaribari Chache, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Richard Tong’i",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2611,
        "legal_name": "Richard Nyagaka Tongi",
        "slug": "richard-nyagaka-tongi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to also support this Bill. I want to acknowledge what my colleagues have said. This is a forward-looking Bill. The amendments are coming from a doctor, our friend Hon. Mishra. He has taken time to go through the system and understands the challenges that we face as a country. This is a Bill that is going to cure the challenges that we face as a country. As my colleagues have said, the amount of foreign exchange we lose to foreign countries in the name of fundraising for our friends, brothers and sisters going for treatment abroad is a lot. In the process, we lose out on employment opportunities. That is because if those patients were treated in Kenya, it would follow that we would have built and developed our hospitals to a level that they can take up some of those patients. That would mean we employ more people to manage those patients. In the process, we would create employment for our people. Unemployment is a bigger challenge that we face as a country. I want to thank Hon. Mishra for this forward-looking Bill. The amendment is timely because of the challenges that we are facing as a country. And now we have learnt, because of Covid-19, that sometimes nature has a way of balancing things. If we refuse to think and come up with policies to guide and help our people, nature has a way of helping us to think and equip our systems. Right now, even if you have money and you want to be treated outside the country, it is not possible because of the Covid-19 challenges. If you are sick with Covid-19, you cannot fly out. It means, therefore, you have to rely on the resources we have in the country. If that is true, and you never know what else is going to happen in the future, we have a duty as a Parliament and as leaders to ensure that we equip and develop our local capacity. Therefore, we want to include in this Bill a provision where, if we are going to get experts to come and attend to our patients in Kenya, they must be given a rider. If they are consultants, we must have a rider that they use the local capacity of up to a maximum of say, 45 per cent, for purposes of incentives. That way, we will transfer the technology and the know-how to our local professionals so that in future, when the experts are not there, we are able to pull through and make things happen. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}