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{
    "id": 1414021,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1414021/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 61,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung'wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity. I want to agree with what all the contributors to the statement have said: that, indeed, our doctors are valued and that many of us depend on them. However, it should not be lost to us that just a decade ago, this country would only produce an average of 300 doctors from our two public universities that were churning out medical graduates. But today, courtesy of the huge investments that we have made as a country in our education system, we are able to churn out an average of 1,500 intern doctors annually. Hon. Speaker, that means that the interns who would have been taken in in five years are expected to be taken in annually. I am saying that to draw the picture to Kenyans of the kind of resources required and to also put into perspective the demands by our good doctors today; they are to be interned at an average of about Ksh206,000 or Ksh207,000. I have listened to this debate in the public domain and the media, and what our doctors are being told is that it is possible to pay Ksh206,000 to intern doctors but take up fewer interns than those who are graduating. This year alone, a total of 1,210 intern doctors are being enlisted at a cost of Ksh2.4 billion within the resource envelope already allocated by this House. Therefore, it is foolhardy for us to speak to the gallery and excite doctors at the gates of Parliament; but it is another thing when we come to budget and make sure that we have adequate resources. The said resources do not come from the moon but from taxes raised by Kenyans, which, again, the same people pontificating about how well we should treat our doctors are the same ones who were at the forefront in opposing the Finance Bill that was supposed to raise taxes to pay these doctors. Hon. Speaker, it may not be possible to pay Ksh206,000 to the interns. I agree with the Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Health, Hon. (Dr) Pukose, that just like interns in other professions, like engineers who are supposed to work under engineers for two years, lawyers, like many of us, including the Leader of Minority Party... I do not know if he has finished his pupillage. When he is under pupillage, he earns a mere Ksh25,000. I am informed that in some law firms, lawyers do not even earn anything. Those who are under pupillage…"
}