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"id": 15003,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Namwamba",
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"speaker": {
"id": 108,
"legal_name": "Ababu Tawfiq Pius Namwamba",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to start by applauding the Member for Kandara for bringing this matter to the attention of this House. Today, the face of cancer in this country is a little ten year old girl called Rose Nasimiyu. The other day I was watching TV in my living room and this girl came onto my screen. She was being interviewed by one of our TV stations. I was moved to tears listening to the story of this little girl. Her spirit, her determination but above all the message was so powerful that cancer is no longer a disease confined to any particular age group or any particular social stratum. As a disease, it is now universal. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, throughout human history, human beings have had to confront certain health challenges that have been, at the beginning, treated almost as exclusive to certain individuals or certain social strata. You remember there was a time in the world when measles was a major challenge. Others were polio, chicken pox and pneumonia. Today, because of deliberate actions, these diseases have been contained and continue to be contained. Though remaining a challenge, there has been a deliberate effort to make the treatment of those diseases affordable. Today, cancer claims more lives all over the world than many of these diseases that I have mentioned. Therefore, it is the responsibility of this House and the Government to effectively respond to this health challenge that faces the country today. It is gratifying that none other than the Minister responsible for medical services in this country has had a personal life experience with this. Therefore, I hope that when the Minister gets the opportunity to respond to this Motion, he will not only bring that life experience to bear on this debate but also use that as an opportunity or impetus to indeed give this Motion and its very noble intent, the flight that it deserves. Therefore, we need to acknowledge that this disease is a reality. It is ravaging large populations all over the country. I visited a patient in a sub-district hospital in my Budalangi Constituency. I watched the young man suffering, in the very last stages of his life, from skin cancer that had ravaged most of his body. Due to his inability to access the very expensive treatment for this disease, he was lying and dying in a sub-district hospital in Budalangi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, therefore, it is not idle for us to debate this matter in this House. This is a matter which is serious. It is a matter which is costing us lives in this country. It is also a cost to our economy to a great extent. Every other day, you hear of Kenyans travelling to South Africa, India, the United States of America (USA) and all sorts of other places to seek this kind of treatment. The Government has been making efforts to bring the treatment of this disease closer to our people by bringing in facilities, especially at Kenyatta National Hospital to enable this country to handle this disease. However, even with that effort, the treatment remains exorbitant and beyond the reach of the majority of our people within our own borders, unless a patient gets an opportunity to travel out of the country. Therefore, this is a Motion which deserves the full support of this House, the full endorsement of the Government and full implementation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, again, I want to report that we are good at passing excellent Motions in this House, and they are a myriad. The Tenth Parliament has passed a great deal of Motions, but it is disappointing that after such an effort, those Motions are simply not implemented. Therefore, I want to challenge the Government, and the Committee on Implementation that should this Motion pass – I hope that we will pass it – it should receive the immediate and unequivocal implantation by the Government. I hope that the Minister responsible for medical services will stand firm and ensure that he is personally involved in making cancer treatment affordable for the great majority of our people. With those remarks, I beg to support the Motion."
}