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"speaker_name": "Mr. Weya",
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"legal_name": "Sammy Arthur Weya",
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"content": "Some of us have had an opportunity to organise medical camps at the grassroots level. Whenever we organise these medical camps, we realise that the majority of people in the rural areas are sick in one way or another. Indeed, I discovered that in my constituency almost 80 per cent of the people who turned up in these camps were sick. We should be improving our district and Provincial hospitals in this country. We should also go down to health facilities in our rural areas. We should conduct medical camps to reach people at the grassroots, who do not have money to go to our district hospitals, which are often too far away from them. Most health centres in our rural areas do not have facilities and drugs that are required. Doctors and other medical officers are also not available in our rural health facilities. The October 17, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2953 Ministry should find ways and means of reaching people at the grassroots. I would like to thank some private companies that have held medical camps and assisted the Ministry in what they call \"making our society a healthy society\". It is only when we have a healthy society that we will have a working society. Last year, one of my constituents was shot in the evening by robbers. We went to Kisumu Provincial General Hospital, but there was no neurosurgeon to assist us. The patient passed away in the morning, as I was trying to have him transported to Nairobi. There was no neurosurgeon in the whole of Nyanza Province. You can imagine the risk we put many of our citizens to due to shortage of neurosurgeons. It is unfortunate to note that this country is producing doctors and nurses only to have them working in foreign countries. This is because they are paid better in those countries than they are in this country. So, this Ministry should find out why our doctors and nurses are leaving the country. If you go to countries like Botswana and Nigeria you will find Kenyan doctors working in their hospitals. I would like to thank the Minister for vaccination of young children. Vaccination campaigns have enabled women in rural areas to have their children vaccinated. This is an initiative that has worked well in the rural areas. In the past, this service was available but was under utilised. So, I would like to commend the Ministry for managing this programme well. Malaria is killing our people. We have found out that mosquito nets do not work in grass- thatched houses. Where are you going to hang a net in a grass-thatched house, since there are chicken and goats in the same house? The idea of indoor spraying of DDT is the only way to reduce malaria among our rural communities. We have people who came to this country to help us eradicate malaria. The reason why we were not using the DDT in the past was its ban by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The WHO has now lifted the ban on the DDT because it has found that it is useful to use it in eradicating malaria. This was done in Europe, the United States and other First World countries. There is no reason why this Government should deny its people the use of DDT. The use of DDT will enable this country to get rid of malaria. It was banned because some multinational companies have been making a lot of money from producing and selling drugs that are used to treat malaria. This is the only reason why they are discouraging this country from using the DDT. This is very clear. If you go to the First World you will not hear about malaria. I am not talking about outdoor spraying of the DDT, but interior spraying of the walls of buildings. This has been shown to work well. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, HIV/AIDS has been a very big problem in this country. I found out recently during a District Development Committee meeting that some money was sent back to the Ministry's headquarters from our district because Government officers said we did not have the capacity to use those funds. I was shocked to learn that colossal sums of money were being sent back to the Ministry's headquarters. This is because procurement procedures did not enable Government officers to use this money. I do not understand why we should be sending money to a place where the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is very high, only to have such funds returned to the Ministry's headquarters. We politicians should be in the front line in tackling this issue. We recently saw Senator Obama taking an HIV/AIDS test publicly. I have also taken such a test in front of my constituents. When I did that, many people also came forward to have the HIV/AIDS test. I was doing that during a programme sponsored by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). We found out that out of those who were tested at that particular time, 45 per cent tested positive for HIV/AIDS but they did not know their status before. We should encourage our people in rural areas to test for HIV/AIDS, so that we can prevent its continued spread. It is a good thing that people in this country take HIV/AIDS seriously. Our behaviour has changed in recent times. It is clear that the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS has now dropped. My community has invested in a medical training college (MTC). This is because of efforts 2954 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 17, 2006 of my colleague, Mr. Midiwo, and myself. We have used our CDF funds to put up an MTC in Siaya District. We have established a facility that will encourage the training of nurses in our rural area. I urge this Ministry to assist this MTC. The Ministry keeps on telling us that it will assist this MTC. The community has spent more money in establishing this MTC than the Government has. The Government should have put in more money because this is a community initiative and will help our people. We would like the Government to allocate more money to this facility. I would also like to discuss the issue of staff morale in our health institutions. Workers in our health institutions are demoralised. They do not have the right equipment with which to tackle emergencies. The Government should equip our health centres to the required standards. In some of our health institutions there is no equipment. It was only recently when Siaya District Hospital acquired a dental chair, but there was no dentist in the whole district! Imagine not having a dentist in the whole district! The Ministry should monitor what is happening in our health institutions. I was shocked to discover the other day that the Minister was launching a malaria campaign in Ukambani. We all know that malaria is more prevalent in the western part of this country than elsewhere. So, I do not know why the malaria control campaign was launched in Eastern Province while the disease is more prevalent in the western region of the country. I would like this Ministry to address some of these issues seriously. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}