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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wamunyinyi",
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"legal_name": "Athanas Misiko Wafula Wamunyinyi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, once again for giving me the opportunity to reply. I want to start by thanking the Members for their contributions and to assure them that we will, of course, take into account all their suggestions when working on this Bill, and when it comes to the House, it will sail through without problems. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to state that among those proposed to be under the board will be an institute to deal basically with psychology matters. This should be an institute established specifically for psychologists. It should be responsible for all those matters pertaining to training, practice, standards, discipline and all those issues that Members have pointed out. In view of the concurrence by Members, you realise that most Members are exposed to a lot of stress. Many times, they also require to be counselled. They also require to be helped to be able to cope in their lives. It is, therefore, necessary that an environment is put in place that allows interventions to Members and other members of society in organisations and so on. Obviously, the Ministry of Education will provide the lead in designing the courses, the curriculum, the syllabi and the level of training from certificate, diploma up to degree levels and, of course, the institutions to train the members of this profession also. But more important, which I think will need to be addressed with the help of Government, is to ensure that there are psychologists deployed up to the grassroots, at the sub-location level, preferably at every Assistant Chief's office or Chief's office at the location. There should be deployed psychologists to deal with members of the communities at the grassroots level. We would be giving a helping hand to members of the community by addressing psychological issues. There may also be need for establishment of career counselling centres to deal with the issues of careers of our young people, those going out of school and those who want to choose what to do in their lives. There are many benefits if we can do all these. As you heard from the Minister for Health, most of the people attending hospitals--- Twenty to 30 per cent of the people, sometimes even more, who go to hospitals have cases which can be dealt with by psychologists. They have problems of a psychological nature which can be dealt with without necessarily having to go to hospitals. All the problems which have been pointed out by hon. Members which range from substance abuse also lead to psychological disorders that could have been avoided if our children are properly counselled and helped professionally. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, without even going through all what hon. Members have said, I would like to state that we will take into account more particularly, those cases which are affecting us now: the Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) centres within our areas. We, obviously, have heard that the training for the people undertaking the counselling of those to be tested for HIV/AIDS is not adequate. Therefore, the need to move fast with this Bill, which should eventually put in place a legal framework within which members of this profession will operate May 9, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1209 and ensure that members of the public are not exposed to quacks. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks and having said many thanks to hon. Members, I beg to move."
}