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{
    "id": 1237881,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1237881/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 198,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Baringo North, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Joseph Makilap",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. First and foremost, I want to congratulate my good friend, the servant of the people, Mhe. Didmus Barasa, for identifying a gap in our hospitals. The fact that he was able to identify what is wrong in our referral hospitals internally and externally is a very good idea. This can only be enriched by Members and experts to make it much better. His idea of amending the Health Bill is correct. My question is: Is this adequate to address the myriad of challenges that are facing our referral system? What do we refer? A doctor refers a patient when his training or professional competencies are inadequate to handle a particular matter. The capacity, competence and training you have to handle that matter is inadequate and so, you refer to the next person or professional with the knowledge to handle such a matter much better so as to rescue a patient. You can also refer a patient to another hospital, if the equipment in a particular hospital is not sufficient or good enough to handle the matter. Notwithstanding the comments by the Chairperson, when the Constitution devolved the health function to counties, hospitals in counties were given big names. You hear every district health centre being called a referral hospital, and the big hospitals in counties being called Level 4 or Level 5 hospitals. Truly, do those hospitals merit or qualify to be called Level 4 or Level 5 hospitals? The answer is a big no. We have hospitals with big names such as Level 4 or Level 5, which do not have the capacity to handle cases that are referred to them. Every Tom, Dick and Harry goes to our referral hospitals without a letter of referral. I understand that because when it comes to matters of life and death, you rush to the nearest place that will save your life. However, as Hon. Barasa envisaged in this Amendment Bill, there is need to put the health sector in order, and the people to do so are the Members of Parliament (MPs). This is because the pain that patients undergo on the ground is huge. You go to a Level 5 Hospital and the doctor refers you to a clinic to go and buy medicine. The Member for Nyeri has said that there is a cartel in the health sector. He talked about the mafia that was devolved from Afya House. It is now in the counties and it is called County Management Teams (CMTs). That is another cartel in our county governments. The CMTs micro-manage doctors until they lose morale, and they resort to engaging in business. How does that happen? A doctor with a private hospital coordinates with those in Government facilities and instructs them to refer patients with excellent insurance coverage to his or her hospital, so that he or she receives something and those in Government facilities receive their commission. You realise that doctors refer patients to various private hospitals in order to collect commissions at the end of the day. Perhaps, even those private institutions are owned by the same physicians. I am thinking of a doctor who owns a very serious hospital, but when he falls ill, he or she goes to a hospital abroad rather than to his own hospital. What does this mean? It means that he lacks confidence in his own medical practice and its personnel. I call upon Hon. Didmus Barasa to sort out the health sector by amending the Health Act. In fact, I encourage my brother Hon. Didmus Barasa to table legislation to bring back health workers under the national Government. Nurses, clinical officers and doctors should be under the national Government, just like teachers. Teachers’ unions were clever enough to retain the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the management of teachers at the national 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."
}