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{
    "id": 1460377,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1460377/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 273,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kisumu East, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Shakeel Shabbir",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 140,
        "legal_name": "Ahmed Shakeel Shabbir Ahmed",
        "slug": "shakeel-shabbir"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. One in every four Kenyans is probably suffering from a mental health issue. We, as Kenyans, have forgotten the issue of mental health. Actually, one in every two youths is struggling with a mental related problem. We have been sidestepping the issue of mental health. Mental health to us in Kenya has always been about Mathari Hospital. We quickly say, ‘ Mtume Mathari Hospital.’ We always think that mental health has to do with a mad man in the village. There is a thin line between a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree holder, who is a brilliant mind, and a passive mental health patient. If I may remind you, you must have seen a well-known professor walking naked along Kenyatta Avenue opposite the post office. The problem with healthcare is that there is stigmatisation. We tend to deny it and want to silence it. We want to put such cases together with traditional witches. We have no budget for it. We have no intention of doing anything other than locking these people away at a Mathari Hospital-like institution. There was a task force that was set up in 2020 by the eminent Dr Njenga and his team. That task force came up with some of the regulations that we have today. The former mental health plan they requested is the policy for providing mental healthcare that Hon. Mishi is proposing, and I support her very much. The problem, of course, is implementation. The problem is that there is no budget or there is a low level of budgetary allocation in the health budget for healthcare. I speak from a position of knowledge because I have been Chairman at the New Nyanza General Hospital for over 10 years. I have been on the Aga Khan Hospital Board for over 15 years and others. I have seen the way mental health is treated a non-issue in this country. We cannot continue to ignore mental issues. Tomorrow, I might be walking down the street without clothes. That does not mean I am a madman. I have simply gone across. There is a beautiful movie called ‘The Beautiful Mind’ about a genius in the United Kingdom who prevented world war, but was treated as a madman. Many times, even all the geniuses that we talk about are accepted and treated as mad people. There is inadequate funding. In fact, this policy is not going to make any difference unless there is a separate budget for mental healthcare management. That budget must come out of the health budget, but must be ring-fenced, so that it cannot be maneuvered or changed by the authorities at"
}