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{
    "id": 210252,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/210252/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 156,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Sambu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 137,
        "legal_name": "Alfred B. Wekesa Sambu",
        "slug": "alfred-sambu"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me time to support the Vote of the Ministry of Health. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to urge this Ministry to employ health workers who have been trained in the various medical training colleges. These are mainly nurses, clinical officers and laboratory technicians. As it came out during Question Time, health centres and dispensaries have been built in many constituencies through the CDF money, but they are now lying unused. In my constituency, there are over 20 such facilities which are ready, but they are lying unused. This is because they do not have staff and equipment. They are also not receiving any drugs from the Ministry, because we are told that they have not been registered. Once the District Development Committee (DDC) - and this is what the Minister said earlier on when replying to a Question - of a particular district, has approved the construction of a health centre or dispensary, when its construction is complete, then drugs should be supplied to it. I really want to stress the issue of the drugs. This is because some drugs may not even require any equipment. If a person is checked and found to be suffering from malaria, for example, then drugs should just be prescribed and given to that particular person. Therefore, I am requesting the Ministry, as I support its Vote, to supply drugs to the newly-built health centres. Mr. Speaker, Sir, whenever the Committees of this House visit the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA), they find out that there is a lot of equipment lying idle at KEMSA. Why is it not being supplied to the health facilities in the constituencies? Did we buy the equipment using public funds just to be kept idle in the KEMSA? Why are we keeping it idle there, when health facilities, especially, maternity wards need this equipment? Why do we have to use the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) money to purchase medical equipment, when we have used some of it to construct health facilities? I am asking the Minister to get the equipment from the KEMSA and supply it to the health facilities which have been completed in the constituencies. I wish to bring up the issue of the high cost of treating patients in many Government health facilities. Patients in many Government health facilities are paying---"
}