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{
    "id": 1110355,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1110355/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 341,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I want to go on record as a supporter of this amendment Bill. Many of the speakers who have spoked have been asking why Sen. (Dr.) Ali is talking of an advisory council. They should have looked at the parent Act. The parent Act has almost 14 clauses dedicated to the health resource advisory council. What Sen. (Dr.) Ali is trying to do is to expand the scope and mandate of that council, so that it can be more responsive to the needs of health workers in counties. We have an option, as the Members of the Senate, to decide to do nothing and wait for a constitutional amendment, or try and do something to better the lot of our health workers in counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, as it is, I believe that the ideal situation is one where health workers are a shared resource and a national asset. The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has taught us that the new soldiers in the war that humanity is waging are health workers. Conventional soldiers are now not going into battle with guns, bayonets, swords and grenades. Now, they are using drones. If you saw the wars in Armenia and Azerbaijan, humans were not deployed. It is machinery that was deployed, yet in the fight against COVID-19, we had to deploy humans in the name of health workers. Madam Temporary Speaker, it then means that our health workers should be treated with the same sacred level of seriousness as we treat our soldiers. We cannot continue to disperse them the way we have been giving them terms that are not equal. We take our best students, who should be conducting research on vaccines for viruses, a solution for sickle cell, which is a disease that afflicts mostly those areas that have got Malaria, and no one is paying attention to it. We make them frustrated. I want to ask this House: When did you last hear revenue collectors in counties going on strike? They will never go on strike even if they have not been paid for two years. When did you last hear Members of the County Assemblies (MCAs) going on strike? Never! However, health workers perennially---"
}