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"speaker_name": "Mr. Syongo",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me a chance to contribute to this Motion. Health is a very important part of human resource management. I want to congratulate the Minister for her courage in doing a number of fairly dramatic things during her tenure as the Minister for Health. Recently, she did cancel maternity fees. But even more significant, I think we appreciate that, in fact, the distribution of medicine to various health centres and hospitals, has considerably improved. Madam Minister, I just want to thank you and your team in the Ministry for this wonderful job. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I just wish that, in fact, we could also have distributed the ambulances much more equitably. This is because if you look at the districts which are far from the Ministry headquarters, you will find that, in fact, they do lack ambulances. Even when they do have them, they do not have sufficient funds to operate them. I also want to say that motor vehicles are not used universally. There are certain areas, such as, Suba District, where we do need marine vessels as ambulances, to supplement the work of motor vehicles. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of direct funding or disbursements to hospitals and health centres, is extremely important. I know that the Minister, in moving the Motion did, in fact, undertake that she will propose amendments to the Act, in order to enable her to disburse funds directly to hospitals and health centres. But I do recall that, in fact, she did make a similar promise last year, when she was moving the Motion on the Vote for her Ministry. It has now taken 12 months and, yet, she is making a similar promise. There is nothing that could be more urgent. It is a fact that the AIE holders are the Medical Officers of Health (MOHs) and that there is a serious problem in terms of transferring the much-needed funds from their desks to the various institutions which are supposed to use the funds. I am aware that, recently, cheques were sent directly to district hospitals. I do not know if this is now a matter of routine, or it is just one of those sporadic initiatives which cannot be sustained, given that the necessary legislation has not been put in place. The rules and regulations from the Treasury, to the best of my knowledge, have not been prepared. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to congratulate the Ministry for promising to gazette the various health facilities that have been put up using the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF); especially, if this can also be followed with the institutionalising of the distribution of drugs to those facilities and their being staffed adequately with competent personnel. If this were to be done, there is no question about that, in fact, the medical services delivery will significantly be improved. This is because the number of health care facilities that have been put up through the CDF are very many and, thank God, are distributed quite widely throughout the country. So, I urge the Minister that once gazetted, let them be provided with staff and medicine - the standard kits - so that they are not idle, yet, the public have spent so much money to put them up. In this respect, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, issues of water being made available in these facilities--- I do not believe that you can actually deliver health services without water. It is impossible! There are also cheap and available energy sources such as solar systems which can be used to power these facilities. So, solar-powered boreholes can be used and solar power can also be used to provide lighting, so that the place looks neat and is hospitable. Obviously, with water, you are guaranteed better sanitation in the health facilities and cross-infection is limited. On the question of training, I know Mr. Muturi mentioned it, it is so important that I would like to encourage the Minister, and her team, to take it very seriously for a number of reasons. First, 2852 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 31, 2007 we have definitely a serious problem with the ratio of medical officers to patients, or population. So, we need more staff to provide services to our people. However, we also have an enormous opportunity in this country to be the hub of training medical personnel for export. I know it for sure, because all of us in our various committees travel a lot, and this issue has come up several times in our dialogue with our colleagues in other countries, especially in America and Europe. The willingness of these countries to bring in money in exchange for our personnel who are going to work in their countries gives us enormous opportunities. So, why can we not attract more investments in the training of personnel? We should improve the standards and train better and let Kenya be the leading nation in exporting personnel in this particular sector. Not only are we going to have more foreign exchange, but we will be solving the serious unemployment which we have. We have good young men and women who can provide these services across the countries. Nobody beats the hospitality of Kenyans, whether you are talking about the hotel or medical industries. I, personally, believe that the Kenyan girl and young man are a first class material who can be trained to conquer the world in this particular sector. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, now that we have the East African Community (EAC) expanded to include Rwanda and Burundi, there is opportunity for a training facility in tropical medicine, specifically that which is most prevalent in our surrounding areas of the EAC. I would like to offer to the Minister 40 acres of land in Suba District, free of charge, to set up this facility in addition to, of course, providing medical services to citizens of the EAC, who live around Lake Victoria. As you know, there is now considerable traffic across the Lake. Tanzanians, Ugandans and Kenyans; the borders of these three countries meet in Suba District, and so it will be an ideal place. I like the way the Minister and the Permanent Secretary are keen on the idea. I can see they are taking notes. I am glad and thankful that they have taken note of this particular offer, because it is a serious one. I will give you the LR number, if you so wish, within one week. I would like to also encourage the Ministry to take the issue of public health seriously. Prof. Maathai has just talked about preventative medicine. The sanitary and phytosanitary conditions in which our people live, especially in urban areas, are pathetic. If you go to high density areas, I do not want to call them slums, Kibera and Korogocho, for example, we have diseases breeding in our midst. We really ought to bring the Ministry of Local Government to account, so that they play an important role in preventative medicine by improving sanitary conditions in which our people live. I know that where there is a will there is a way. The Ministry of Roads and Public Works has a lot of earth-moving equipment which can be used to clean up these places. We have many youth who are waiting to be employed, and we can employ them to work on drainage works, so that we have no stagnant water and filth all over the place. I do not see why we cannot have running water, even if it means it being shared between five families. This will ensure that there is better water and sanitation for our people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, I will address the question of paying attention to the pharmaceutical industry. I know a lot of medicine is being imported, and we are losing a lot of foreign exchange. However, there is also an opportunity for herbal medicine. India, Pakistan and China are now leading exporters of botanical medicine. Let us have a clear policy to encourage investment in this sector, not only in terms of conventional medicine but also in terms of bringing in and commercialising botanical medicine, which we have in plenty, provided we can take care of the Intellectual Property Act as well as the indigenous knowledge so that we do not have people taking away our knowledge, and commercialising it to their own benefits. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}