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"id": 1072681,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1072681/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13162,
"legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
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"content": "We have seen the Kenya Integrated Health System and Data that highlighted the outcomes of the prenatal and antenatal visits, the outcome on immunization and other indicators of success in the health sector. However, the Governor has not paid workers in the health sector. Strikes are the order of the day. Whenever strikes are the order of the day, it means that the residents of Wajir County cannot get the services that they desire. For all the 47 counties where health workers consistently strike like in Homa Bay, Kisumu and many other counties, I urge them to impeach their governors because we are impeaching the Governor of Wajir County because his health workers are going on strike. If this House establishes that is impeachable, Then I would like to see the other 46 county governors coming to this House to be impeached if we are using the same standard. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I read in the report that out of the 50 doctors employed in Wajir County, 20 of them are away on study leave. We, Members of Parliament, receive calls from health workers every other day asking us to intervene for them to be allowed to go on study leave in cases where they have received scholarships. The other day, I dealt with a case where a young doctor got a scholarship to go to Muimbini in Tanzania to study oncology considering the menace the cancer is in this country and knowing how short we are of qualified oncologists in our county governments, the CECM health and other people in the Homa Bay County Government refused to give her an opportunity to go and study because they thought that they have to deal with issues of malaria and other communicable disease rather than oncology issues. Even if we impeach the Governor of Wajir County today, we must hail him for ensuring that his doctors are receiving training. Having 20 out of 50 doctors away of training is impressive. I hope that the doctors who are away on training are on full scholarships and that did not just acquire those opportunities on their own. That tells a story of a county government which out of its many bad policies, has at least one good policy on the development of its staff. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the CEO of the county is the Governor. The person responsible for health services is the CECM and the chief officer for health. The decision that we are going to make today will set a precedent. A few of us here were governors before they came to this House. We insist that if a spoon disappears in the stores, the Governor must tell us why the spoon disappeared from the store because he is the CEO so the buck stops there. What I have seen in many counties is that when the health sector is messed up, they first deal with the CECM in charge of health. I do not know whether the MCAs of Wajir County dealt with the CECM and chief officer in charge of health before proceeding to the Governor. However, the Governor cannot run away because he is the CEO of the county. I would like to see a situation where the Governor is being impeached at the Senate while the CECM in charge of health also takes responsibility for his or her inefficiency, incapacity and failure to provide health services to the people of Wajir County. I would like to use this opportunity to educate our MCAs, not just the ones from Home Bay County, but from all the 47 counties. The health function is such an important devolved function. When the health function is suffering, they should not run around dealing with small fish ‘ omena ’. They should go for the big fish as it has been demonstrated by Wajir County Assembly. When the CEO of the county wakes up in the morning, he must know what is going on in the health sector. I travelled back from Homa Bay County this morning. I"
}