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{
    "id": 1110345,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1110345/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 331,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Kavindu Muthama",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I did not know how much our doctors and medical personnel were going through until my late dear brother fell sick. I had to interact at a very close range with the doctors, nurses and even the cleaners of hospitals. That was until I discovered that they go for months without even pay. With this advisory council in place and proper binding roles, they will be advising. Something must be done in this country because the rule of law must be there. If the rule of law is not there, then we will keep on making laws which will never be followed by any one. Madam Temporary Speaker, I request Sen. (Dr.) Ali with the team that is working on this to put in place a binding role that will enable this advisory council, committee or board for the national and county governments to implement whatever the advisory will come from the council. This is because for sure if you work and you are not motivated in any way, you will not do your wok the way you should. Madam Temporary Speaker, these people give themselves even to go into, for example, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) isolation wards. They get in there and yet they know that they are vulnerable and can be infected, die and leave their families. For sure when they are doing that, they have not been paid for months and their families are suffering. Some of them do not even know when they will go back home to find their landlords asking for rent, while their children and wives are asking for food. The following day they again wake up to go and provide the same services. For sure, we should do something. Even for the cleaners, if those facilities are not cleaned, those doctors, the patients and those who go to see the patients will not be happy to enter the dirty places and yet they go for months without pay. Madam Temporary Speaker, I know a case in Machakos County where people have worked as cleaners for about six months with no pay until they resign. Others come, they are employed, they work for two or three months, there is no pay and they too resign. This is a timely Bill if only something can be done. We hope that the advisory that they will give will be implemented. Another issue concerns specialised doctors. My late dear brother had to be transferred to Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital (KUTRRH) from Machakos General Hospital because they could not get services of a cardiologist. If this does not happen across the board, we shall not have specialised doctors in the counties. This is so that patients in national hospitals get the same services as those in the counties. That will be very good. Madam Temporary Speaker, I am sure with the advisory committee in place, they will know which doctors are where and where a particular patient should be referred. There should be that flexibility. The doctors and medical personnel will also have a place where they can raise their voice. If they are only depending on the county governments since health is a devolved function, then they have nowhere to take their complaints. That is why we see them every now and then on the streets, demonstrating for lack of pay and other amenities. Even at KUTRRH, in that particular ward where my brother was referred to for isolation, a doctor had not seen the patients who were there for one and a half weeks. Tell me, did these patients survive COVID-19? If the doctors could not go in there because of"
}