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"id": 233114,
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"speaker_name": "Dr. Kibunguchy",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Health",
"speaker": {
"id": 294,
"legal_name": "Enoch Wamalwa Kibunguchy",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to give the position of the Ministry, which is that we are supporting this Bill. Before I go into one or two areas that I wanted to touch on, it will also be prudent, appropriate and proper for me to also congratulate Dr. Ojiambo, for the efforts and the persistence she has put in, so that this Bill has seen the light of day and now it is in its Second Reading Stage. I know that she has received a lot of input from the Ministry of Health and many other professionals out there. I am sure that at the time we come to look at the issue of amendments, we will make what is now a good Bill, even better. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are what we eat. In this country, you will find that we have two extremes. On one side of the spectrum, you will find Kenyans who are dying slowly from eating junk food, while on the other side of it, we have people who are obese. Right now, obesity per se is being looked at as a disease. We know that obesity leads to other diseases such as Diabetes type II. It contributes significantly to hypertension, and is definitely linked to heart diseases that involve blood circulation. On the other side of the spectrum, we have many Kenyans who are starving and must depend on food donations. We have Kenyans who day in, day out, are eating food that is deficient in the right type of vitamins, minerals and fibre. So, we are faced with those two extremes. I wish a way could be found to bridge the two ends. We know that nutrition plays a role in the management of HIV/AIDS and in the management of most chronic diseases. Nutrition is definitely important at the time of pregnancy and when mothers are breast-feeding. Therefore, as I look at the various clauses of this Bill, I would once again like to congratulate hon. Ojiambo, for the work she has done so far. I know that she will come with a raft of amendments. Therefore, I would like her to consider adjusting some parts of the Bill, as she looks into the amendments. As a Ministry, we might also come up with certain amendments. One of the areas I would like looked at is this whole concept of the Board. We would like to avoid the pitfall that has now befallen the Laboratory Technicians and Technologists Board because we know very well that nutritionists will be trained at a very low level; at a certificate level. However, I am very sure, and I know that we have nutritionists and dieticians who have degrees. Some have masters degrees and so on. As we look at this Board and its composition, we must be aware of the kind of people it will have. All I am saying is that we must avoid the pitfall and the road that the Laboratory Technicians and Technologists Board has taken because it is giving us a lot of problems. At the time when the Act came into being, we did not envisage a time when we would have laboratory technicians training to have degrees, but now we have them. The Act is rather silent on those kinds of people. So, as we look at the composition of the Board, Dr. Ojiambo should be wary of what has happened to the Laboratory Technicians and Technologists Board. Clause 5 defines the people who will be in that Board. Obviously, right at the beginning, it is written that the Permanent Secretary is the technical person from the Ministry of Health, and I am sure from other Ministries as well. I will propose, when the time comes that, rather than have 3934 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 23, 2006 the Permanent Secretary, we have the Director of Medical Services sitting there, or his or her representative. Right at the bottom of Clause 5(4), I will also propose that it would be good to have a substantive chairperson rather than allowing Board members to assemble and pick one of them as a chairperson. The chairpersons should have some qualifications attached to them so that being a new Board, the chair can direct and define the direction that the Board will take. It is extremely important that we have a substantive chair. There are people who are mentioned here, and I do not know what value they will add to the Board. Maybe, we need to look at the people who will be coming from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers and such areas. We need to think twice and know if they really merit to be in the Board or not. As a Ministry, we have seen that there are certain areas which seem to overlap one another. There is the area of the Board, which we are all in agreement and will pass. However, on the area of the institute, I think we might end up creating a lot of bureaucracy when we have on one end a Board and on the other, an institute. I really do not know the functions of the institute because when you look through the functions, they seem to overlap with those of the Board. So, it is the contention of the Ministry that one of them gives way to the other. We feel that the institute has to give way so that we have a Board, and probably a council which is leaner and which can more or less agitate for the welfare of its members. However, the Board will look at the substantive issues like training, discipline, and registration of the institutions which will be training its people so that we do not just have institutions springing up like it is happening in other fields, yet they do not meet the standards. I think that should be left to the Board and then the council takes up the issues of the welfare of its members. That is a bit like what happens in the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board which takes care of training, registration and disciplining of doctors among other issues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also have the Kenya Medical Association (KMA), which is like the trade union arm of doctors that agitates for their rights. That is the route we should take. This is my advice to the Mover of this Bill. In many other areas, the Ministry is in agreement with the Bill. The Ministry would like to encourage, congratulate and support what the hon. Member has done. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I conclude, we have to look at various aspects of the Bill. We are moving to an area where research becomes extremely important. When I talk about research, I am looking at what we call traditional foods. If you visit many towns, even here in Nairobi, you will find that quite a number of people are eating traditional foods, apart from the other health practices that they are following. These are the foods that our great grandfathers and grandfathers used to eat, which the white man came in this country and said they were not good and we all switched to modern foods. We are now eating fried foods which contain a lot of oil. At the moment, a number of our people are consuming traditional foods. We need to do a lot of research in this area, so that we are able to determine whether these foods truly have nutritional value or this is just a tradition we are trying to follow. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our people need to get proper education at whatever level on issues of nutrition. We need to launch education programmes on television, radio and in the print media. These programmes should be used to inform our people on the right and the wrong foods. Therefore, the areas of research, education and standards are extremely crucial. These are the areas I would like to see the Board getting involved in. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support the Bill and urge the Mover to review some sections of this Bill when we get to the Committee Stage."
}