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{
    "id": 1235866,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1235866/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 202,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Githunguri, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gathoni Wamuchomba",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Allow me to take this opportunity to first congratulate and thank my brother, Hon. Didmus Barasa; the young, vibrant and energetic. The Hon. Member is serving his second term as a representative of the great people of Kimilili Constituency. I want to thank him for taking the bold step to voice a concern, through his parliamentary obligation, on the need to amend the Health Act. The amendment seeks to consider a dire need of the people that we represent. As a woman leader, a mother and a representative of the people of Githunguri Constituency, I am very humbled to be standing here to second this proposed amendment by Hon. Barasa. I have gone through all the letters and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that were submitted to the relevant Committee in favour of this proposed amendment. I have read submissions from the KEPSA, Kenya Health Sector and Coalition for Blood for Africa. In summary, all the submissions are in support of this proposed amendment. We can never give better service to the people that we represent in this House if we cannot embrace this kind of proposal. It seeks to regularise, through a policy, the ways and styles in which our medical practitioners have been referring patients. This is bearing in mind that all of us are victims and have been patients in the past. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I come from a rural constituency called Githunguri. We now have an opportunity to have a referral hospital. It is upcoming and we look forward to its completion. We would be very happy to have a policy that guides the referral system. This is because we also want to make sure that the facility that is coming up in Githunguri benefits the people of Githunguri and the neighbouring sub-counties of Gatundu North, Gatundu South, Ruiru and Limuru. Therefore, we welcome a policy to guide the referral system. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were not allowed to move around. So, we had a crisis bestowed on patients who were previously referred to other countries like India. The COVID-19 pandemic caught them in those foreign countries. We used to receive many distress calls that we help rescue our own patients who were referred to those countries. They were not able to move during the lockdown. They were not able to pay their hotel, hospitality and even medication bills. As a Kenyan, I have a conviction that we have hospitals here with all the equipment and highly experienced practitioners who can attend to some of the referrals that are made to those countries, However, we are quick to refer them to such facilities because of this new paradigm shift in the medical field called ‘medical tourism’. Indeed, medical tourism comes with a token. There are some people who are motivated by tokenism because they are paid commissions based on the number of referrals they make to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}