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{
    "id": 1338360,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1338360/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 437,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) James Nyikal",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "These community health workers will be elected members elected by the community members. We, therefore, have to support them with trained health workers. This is where the primary healthcare network comes in. We will link these community units of community health workers with the nearest Level 2 or Level 3 health facilities. This will ensure that we have a community health extension worker who works with a community health promoter. If the community health worker encounters challenges, then they can escalate it to the community health extension worker who is a trained medical officer—a nurse, a doctor or a public health officer. This will give us a primary healthcare network consisting of the number of communities, the community health workers and the primary healthcare facilities that they are linked to. As indicated, this will lead to a referral system so that if treatment is not achieved at Level 2 or Level 3 hospitals, the patients are referred to Level 4 hospitals. That is the primary health care network which is referred to in this document as hub and... The hub is a Level 4 facility which can undertake surgeries, child delivery and C-section. These Level 4 hospitals are then linked to Level 2 hospitals which are then supported by the community health promoters. If we support this by passing it into law, it will take us a long way in promoting health. The training we are talking about here is basic. No one is born a doctor or a nurse. Intelligent people can be community health workers. A community health worker can be trained to know that, that is probably a prostate issue when a 60-year-old man is passing urine very frequently. If the urine is frequent and in small amounts, it is prostate. If it is frequent and in large amounts, and one looks a bit fat, that is likely to be diabetes. They will know one’s condition. It is most likely malaria if it is a child who is otherwise well, maybe a one-year-old, but gets a fever suddenly, starts to get hot, and lives in a malaria-prone area. Give them some paracetamol. For that, they know one should be using a net. A pregnant woman should be using a net. A pregnant woman should be taking this and that kind of food. I support this Bill because we will reduce the cost of healthcare tremendously if we properly use the hub and scope of the primary healthcare network at the community level. We will prevent, promote awareness, treat and catch diseases at the earliest possible time. We will not need to get very many people going to tertiary care. We may need very few people going abroad for treatment of late stages of cancer. That is something that would have been picked up and dealt with much earlier. I support the Bill we have put into law. We will finance it, the community will select primary health promoters, and county governments will appoint them. This Bill says county governments will decide their remuneration. It also provides that there must be a policy from the Ministry of Health at the higher level. That will give a uniform way of handling matters across all the counties. With that, Hon. Temporary Speaker, I support."
}