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{
    "id": 1073115,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1073115/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 289,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully and make a contribution to their communities. Anything that adversely affects that is what mental health efforts seek to address. That is what mental health is. It has been categorized in many aspects by medical proffessionals. We have what we call schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorders, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and bipolar disorder. Recent medical research goes into areas which initially had never been classified as mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, borderline disorder, eating disorders, alcohol and substance addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. When you see a lot that happens with our brothers and sisters who have been in the armed forces, a lot of it has had to do with post-traumatic stress disorder or after a disaster has happened. Many times we are not able to give post-traumatic stress counselling and then we wonder why there are all these happenings within our forces. An example is, if you look at the military veterans in the US they have really focused on addressing this but we have not been able to do it as much in this country. Many do not know why there is need for this legislation. Before that I would like to inform Kenyans of the real state of mental health. One, there are only 14 facilities in this country that are dealing with mental health. These 14 facilities are not necessarily all public institutions. Many are out of reach of Kenyans. Madam Temporary Speaker, there are only 88 psychiatrists and 47 nurses qualified to deal with this for a population of close to 50 million Kenyans. In these hospitals the bed capacity is actually 25 in the whole country. So we are staring at a potential crisis. I heard somebody say that the real crisis that will come after COVID-19 is the mental health crisis. Mathare Mental Hospital which is in my county and which is a national facility, has a bed capacity of 700. Moi Referral Hospital has a bed capacity of 70. Beyond that we are talking about a very small capacity of just 25. Majority of Kenyans also suffer from these illnesses but do not know. Due to lack of proper staffing and focus they are not even able to be diagnosed properly when they have these mental health disorders. So they continue suffering. They become worse and worse and situations that could be saved early deteriorate rapidly and it leads to a breakdown in society. Madam Temporary Speaker, one thing many of us do not know is that Kenya is actually the sixth in terms of the highest numbers of mental health cases - especially depression and mental anxiety - within the African Continent and that should be cause for concern. That is why the in the World Health Organization report; it is not something that we have made up. Twenty-five percent of outpatients and 40 percent of inpatients in health facilities suffer from some form of mental health condition according to a report in 2011 by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights which means that possibly that number is much higher."
}