Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1050139,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1050139/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 31,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Members may not know that in the last Parliament when I was in the National Assembly, a colleague of ours, who I will not name, had mental issues. At some point, he went and asked the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) where Sen. Cheruiyot sits, why her healthcare professional is not on the panel. In the panel, there are always dentists and other fields such as ophthalmologists and surgeons. However, you do not find psychosocial help or psychiatrists at that time. What we realized when they added that field to the list, the PSC will tell you that one of the most used medical professions from our own health insurance is mental health by staff and hon. Members. We are privileged enough to have insurance and to be able to get any kind of healthcare yet millions of Kenyans cannot get it. Sen. Cheruiyot has talked about Mathari National Teaching and Refferal Hospital. I know many facilities. Our children do not have special schools for those with autism. I have very few public schools in Nairobi. However, many parents who have children with autism and such mental conditions cannot find a place to take them. We must address that and a substantive report by the Committee on Health proposing whether it is both in the Mental Health Task Force the President brought up and other interventions need to be passed in this House. Thank you, Sen. (Dr.) Mbito. On top of that, I said it last week, please look at the state of our children’s mental health after this COVID-19 pandemic. Our children are not doing well in their schools. I talked about the feeding programme. If you go to schools, and I have been touring my schools, when you ask children what they would like, they would normally tell you that they want balls or sweets. However, nowadays they will tell you that they want food because the economic situation at home is so bad. That shows you the state of mind that they are in. If they have nothing in their tummies, nothing will go in to their minds. Let us think more about the state of our children and many sectors in society after this COVID-19 pandemic, so that it is not just the post-corona economic recovery strategy that they are looking at, but also issues of health. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir."
}