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{
    "id": 1156723,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1156723/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 296,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Endebess, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Robert Pukose",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1458,
        "legal_name": "Robert Pukose",
        "slug": "robert-pukose"
    },
    "content": "we must provide expertise in terms of human resource and equipment for them to make early diagnosis and treatment. The same amendments talk of having consultations with healthcare practitioners and the relevant statutory bodies. This is where you levy charges on the practice of conventional medicine in consultation with relevant statutory bodies and stakeholders. We must be able to consult the doctors, patients and those who are involved in providing this healthcare in terms of how much we charge for certain services. For example, we must have uniformity in charges. The biggest challenge is that when somebody goes to a private hospital, charges are exorbitant while the same treatment offered in a Government facility attracts less charges. For example, you hear somebody was in ICU in one of the hospitals and was charged millions of money while another in a different facility was charged less. We therefore, need to have at least... If there is going to be a variation, it must not be exorbitant. It must not be a big variation in terms of charges. We must, at least, have conventional medicine which is the modern traditional medicine. We are differentiating it from the herbalists because they can charge any figure. Whatever they give you might be placeboes – something to just treat you psychologically. However, in terms of practice of conventional medicine, we need to have uniformity. If somebody’s appendix is removed in Nairobi Hospital and for another in Kenyatta National Hospital, there should not be a big difference. It should be a small variation that allows everybody to have affordable health care. The other important issue is that somebody should not pay a deposit before getting treated. Let that person be treated, thereafter look for the money. If you are working in a public facility built with taxpayers' money know that the drugs you are using are bought by taxpayers' money and the staff working there are paid salaries by taxpayers' money. So, why detain a body until they bring money to pay for the medical expenses? This Bill should criminalise that kind of practice such that any public officer working in a Government institution, a public facility, detaining a body for people to go and look for money should be surcharged or even be dismissed from that position. They are not worth it! Anybody working in a Government facility should not demand from persons a deposit before they are attended to. Admit the patient, let him or her start getting treatment then the relatives can look for money to pay for the treatment. Hon. Mwambu is responding to his constituents, the ones in Endebess and everywhere else. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, your constituents too want to go to hospital, be treated and then look for money to pay medical fees. They should not have a situation where a body is detained for people go look for money. To me, this is a good Bill. It responds to the wishes of many Kenyans. I hope this House will support it. With those few remarks, I second."
}