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{
    "id": 1057196,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1057196/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 256,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Milgo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13174,
        "legal_name": "Milgo Alice Chepkorir",
        "slug": "milgo-alice-chepkorir"
    },
    "content": "This disease has robbed families of their livelihoods. As my colleague has said, we do realise that when somebody is diagnosed with cancer from a particular family, apart from being unable to continue with work, there is confusion in orienting themselves in terms of the normal duties at home. In some instances, we find that if a wife gets cancer, the husband might choose to divorce her. In other cases, children from such families end up suffering because of loss of livelihoods from their parents. Cancer is a disease that takes up a lot of money. The moment it is at Stage Three and Four it means that person will require palliative care and a lot of medication to relieve pain. The families end up having a challenge. Apart from this disease affecting families, our country has been robbed of great leaders. My own Governor, Dr. Joyce Laboso, died of cancer. We also had the former Senator for Migori, hon. Ken Okoth from Kibera and the most recent death of a Member of Parliament, hon. Waititu from Juja. These were great leaders whose lives were nipped in the bud. They were going to contribute much to this country, however, we lost them at an early age. May their souls rest in eternal peace. Although Kenya is among countries that affirmed the Abuja Declaration to set aside 15 per cent of their annual budget for medical sector, it is still a challenge. We have just heard from the CPAIC how there is a lot of pilferage in the counties. A lot of money is lost in the counties. Recently, when we had the COVID-19 pandemic, there were few counties that put up seclusion centres and facilities, to ensure patients are given the care they required at that particular time. In any case, that is a disease that just came recently. One of the Jubilee Government pillars in their manifesto is healthcare as a key economic programme. However, Universal Health Care has not been achieved because there have been other priorities, one of them being COVID-19. We have had other issues like corruption, which have bedevilled our country. Recently, our President said that everyday we are losing almost Kshs2 billion due to corruption. The other day, we saw how COVID-19 funds that were taken to KEMSA are a subject of corruption. Although no culprit has been found, where there is fire there is smoke. We realise that a lot of funding has been lost, while we have cancer patients languishing in poverty. They are dying. My colleague was lucky to go for specialised treatment elsewhere. However, for those who are not able, it is a challenge because our country cannot put up cancer centres. They cannot even train oncologists. They do not even have screening machines."
}