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"speaker_name": "Prof. Oniang'o",
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"legal_name": "Ruth Khasaya Oniang'o",
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"content": "; Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to support this Vote, and also support my colleague, the Minister for Health. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, health sector is very important. I want to recognise the achievements that have been made in the recent past. But I would like to say that there are many Kenyans who are unable to access health care, especially for specialised conditions. What surprises me is the health centres! They are closed at 6.00 p.m. and are not opened over the weekends. They cannot handle emergencies. Diseases do not chose when to come! That is where the tragedy is. The worst that can happen to you is to have an emergency at night. There are no ambulances in most of those areas. Even where there are, they have no fuel. In places where they have fuel, it is very insecure. I would like to appeal to the Ministry to think of having a paramedical team that can be positioned somewhere so that, when there is a tragedy, they can be called upon to attend to it. If need be, patients can then be taken to hospitals. That is what happens elsewhere. I am sure the Minister and his very capable team can think about that. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, hypertension and diabetes are very common diseases in one person. They are very problematic and common in the African race. Most patients with diabetes and hypertension drop dead because they have no idea they have those conditions. Monitoring those diseases is, sometimes, very difficult. Those patients can only go to referral hospitals which are too far away. You find people from western Kenya travelling all the way using their very little money to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). That is because KNH is the only referral hospital. We need every provincial hospital to be a referral hospital. I would like to see the Ministry giving incentives to doctors who can work in those hospitals. At the moment, every doctor wants to be around Nairobi. You cannot blame them. They take many years to train. They are lucky when they qualify. They deserve to be paid well. They deserve to be given proper status like it is done elsewhere. We need to give incentives to our doctors who are willing to work in those areas. That way, we will distribute doctors equally throughout the country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, some health centres do not even have a small operating room. 2950 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 17, 2006 Imagine an expectant woman arriving in a hospital and she is unable to deliver. She requires caesarean section--- I have heard of cases where expectant mothers reach provincial hospitals, only to die on the operating tables because they have been in labour for too long. We have Kenyans who are unable to afford cars to drive themselves to hospitals. I believe that is an area that can be addressed right now. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, another area is that of dental care. I have never understood why taking care of my teeth, removing a tooth or maintaining it is seen to be aesthetic. Right now, we have a lot of sugar in our diets. Many people go around with just half the number of teeth in their mouths. That is because they see dentists who are not qualified. The best they can do is remove your tooth. Some of those quack doctors just remove teeth. I do not know whose responsibility it is to step up the training of dental assistants. I am aware that training of dentists take a lot of time and is very expensive. But we need proper dental care even at the community level. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue has to do with the eyesight. Many people are losing their eyesight. Many people are not even aware that, when they do not eat Vitamin A, their eyesight will be lost. I want to appeal to the Ministry to integrate proper nutrition education in our hospitals. That is the first thing they should be preaching to the patients. As far as I am concerned, food is the first medicine. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, another area that I want to touch on is one that our colleagues have talked about; that is herbal medicine. Research has shown that many Kenyans go for herbal medical doctors before they go to modern medicine. We have traditional medicines that can treat modern day diseases which are un-treatable by conventional medicines. We would like to go the South African way; integrate herbal and alternative medicine in our health care system. That needs to be legislated. I hope the Minister will take it up quickly. I know she is aware that all our communities have specialised herbal medicines. We should not relegate them. They actually work in many of our conditions. Therefore, we should have herbal medicines alongside conventional medicines. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are aware that in Pumwani Maternity Hospital, where more than 100 children are born every day, women are not treated well. Many of them are sent home the same day they have delivered. Can you imagine a mother delivering today and she is told to go home immediately? She can hardly walk. We do not take our women seriously, when they deliver. We know that in Africa and Kenya, we still lose many women in child birth. I want to appeal to the Minister to look into that and make sure that every health centre has a maternity ward. It should be able to provide delivery services and a theatre for operations. Even if clinical officers have to go for specialised training, they should be able to manage caesarian sections. We have many young people who are having babies before their bodies mature. There is nothing I can do about that, personally. They are unable to deliver normally. Therefore, we have many cases that require caesarean section. We should equip those health centres to deal with such cases. Other than that, I would like to complement the Minister and remind her that people have forgotten the hotline numbers that she gave out. Recently, I had a case where a Standard VIII pupil was in a district hospital suffering from typhoid. He was given the first dose of medicine and told: \"You must pay before the next doses are given!\" I had to intervene until the doses became available. Those are corruption cases that should be attended to. People should be given the hotline numbers to call when such cases are detected. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to congratulate the Minister and her team. Many of the issues that have been brought up by hon. Members can be done and are practical. We need to give her more money. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}