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{
    "id": 22834,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/22834/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 214,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Defence",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 192,
        "legal_name": "Joseph Kasaine Ole Nkaissery",
        "slug": "joseph-nkaissery"
    },
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I rise to support this very important Vote. First, let me commend the Minister and the staff of the Ministry for working very hard to bring this Motion. It is very important and good to know that a healthy nation is a secure nation. The two Ministries which deal with the health of the nation require to be funded, in my view, more than the Ministry of Education. This is because a healthy nation is a secure nation. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if we build a medical centre of excellence it will produce qualified personnel who will transit to medical centres in our country. This will help to treat communicable diseases. That will require additional money. The Minister has talked about a shortfall of about Kshs23 billion which is peanuts in my view. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the remuneration of the medical staff is very low. The other day I was transiting through London and met a nurse. She told me that there are 4,000 nurses in the United Kingdom (UK) alone and more than that in the United States of America (USA). It is not because they want to go and work there, but because the salaries that we pay them are very low. Therefore, we need to bring back these people by putting in place better employment conditions for them. This Ministry has set up medical centres of excellence in every constituency. We would like these centres to be fully manned with experts in specific diseases. As you may have realized, HIV/AIDS is very prevalent in this country and tuberculosis is also coming up. If we cannot post staff to those medical centers, we will end up having “white elephants” in every constituency. I appreciate what my brother, hon. David Musila, has said. It is inhuman to retain dead bodies in hospitals because of non-payment of money. Therefore, I would like the Ministry to come up with a policy to support those hospitals. The Government should chip in and pay NHIF some money so that bodies and young babies who are born are not retained. Even when you get fully treated in hospital and get well, you are still retained because you are unable to pay. People do not refuse to pay. They cannot pay because they have nothing to pay. Therefore, how can we mitigate this? We need to give more money to this Ministry. When you look at Millennium Development Goals, we cannot achieve those goals unless we fund this Ministry fully to meet the stated deadlines. I do not see why we do not have specialists taking care of specific diseases in every district hospital. I do not see the reason why. We are 48 years old as a nation and we have medical experts like my brother, hon. Bonny Khalwale. He should tell us why we cannot have specialists in every district hospitals at 50 years of age, as a nation. When you look at the Budget, the Ministry was given Kshs27 billion. That is money for personal emoluments, salaries and developments, among other things. Where will we get research money from? We need, for example, cancer treatment facilities in all district hospitals. With those few remarks, I support."
}