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{
    "id": 1237753,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1237753/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 70,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Endebess, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Robert Pukose",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The Kenya Health Sector Referral Strategy, 2014 guides the health sector in establishing an effective and responsive referral system through various strategic interventions. One of the interventions is the development of guidelines on medical tourism that will guide the establishment of an efficient referral system for outbound and inbound patients, which the Ministry of Health had already initiated. Upon considering the Health (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Committee recommends that the House rejects this Bill in its entirety. The justification for it is that the referral within the country is already provided for within the Health Act No.21 of 2017 and it is a matter of policy. Secondly, referral outside the country is also a matter of policy that is best handled by the Ministry of Health and does not need to be legislated upon. Legislating on the same would cause unnecessary bureaucracies to the detriment of Kenyans seeking treatment abroad, and create a lot of challenges. If you have a patient who wants to seek treatment abroad, you will have to wait for the approval process to take place before you are able to take that patient abroad. More often than not, by the time you get approval from that body, the patient might even be dead. As a Committee, we felt that we should not legislate too much and make it very difficult. More often, you will find that somebody will seek treatment after you have discussed as a family and decided that you want to take the patient to a certain country for treatment. You then have to initiate a process for approval to take the patient abroad. You then request for a meeting to be held. You also move from one office to another seeking approval and yet, it would have been easier for you as a family to sit down with your local doctor and agree to refer the patient to India, Europe or even the United States of America. That makes it much easier. As a Committee, we felt that this Bill should be rejected by the House in its entirety, as it is already provided for under the policy and rules of KMPDC. With those few remarks, I reject the Bill."
}