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{
"id": 1157442,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1157442/?format=api",
"text_counter": 190,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
"slug": "moses-wetangula"
},
"content": "dent on the boot would push you to come out and take away somebody’s life. That is a mental problem. We have cases where mothers and fathers are killing their own children. They are poisoning their children, setting houses on fire, where they have locked in their children. Instead of the law enforcement agencies and criminal justice system are quickly rushing to - of course it is important that when a homicide or crime is committed, one would expect an arrest, an investigation and prosecution where necessary. It is absolutely important to have a situation as we do in homicide cases, where you are charged with murder and it does not matter how sane you look. The High Court will require that your mental capability is assessed before you stand trial. A report from a certified mental health practitioner is furnished to the court to say that so-and-so is fit to stand trial for the charge of murder. A situation like that obtains in many other situations, for example, arson, assault and so on. We have a lot of cases, for example, where a young man rapes his mother or sister. You see this in the media daily. That cannot just be a sexual urge; it is a mental problem. Today, if you go to any of the hospitals and you are diagnosed with a mental problem, there is no immediate first aid because they have no facilities and personnel. You will find a general practitioner, a nurse or a dresser. They will only say that they cannot find any problem with you and release you to go back to terrorise the society. You are mentally sick, but they will tell you that they cannot find any problem with you. Obviously, they cannot find any problem with you because they are not trained to find a problem that is mental. Mr Temporary Speaker, Sir, I salute the developments of the health sector because whatever they are, some of them are just by name, but almost every county today has a county referral hospital, where referrals from health centres, dispensaries and sub county hospitals are met for further treatment and specialised attention. I would like for a start to see that each county referral hospital has a fully-fledged mental wing with full mental health personnel at doctors’ level, who can attend to cases of mental problems when they occur and they are many. Sometimes, people do bizarre things in the country side and the cities and we laugh them off, yet they are actually products of mental disorder. How on earth can somebody wake up and get hold of a child he sired and drop it in a septic tank or in a shallow well in the homestead? How can somebody lock the door of a house and set it on fire? When you eventually find out, you hear that the father and mother quarrelled; so, the mother got disappointed and killed the children. We know that the animal instinct is that the female species of any animal, whether wild, domestic or human being because we are all animal species, are very caring instincts for their offsprings. You will never see a cow turning on its calf and killing it. That is an animal instinct. In fact, even when you go to the wildlife sanctuaries, you will see when a huge herd of buffaloes are moving, the calves are in the middle being protected from predators like hyenas, lions, cheetahs, leopards and others. Those are human and animal instincts that are the same wherever you are. There is always the instinct to protect your offspring."
}