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{
    "id": 364869,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/364869/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 171,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Pukose",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1458,
        "legal_name": "Robert Pukose",
        "slug": "robert-pukose"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you talk about our rural facilities, for instance, in Endebess Constituency, we have a sub-district hospital, one health centre and three dispensaries which were built through the CDF, but are dysfunctional. If you go to a health centre or dispensary, you find only one staff. Recently, a recruitment exercise was carried out under the ESP programme when Members were busy campaigning. This was hurriedly done and I think it was not properly done because the Members were not involved. I urge the Members that when they go back to their constituencies, they should see that the facilities that have not been equipped are equipped and nurses or clinical officers are deployed from those areas to man those facilities. The other issue that needs to be brought to the attention of the Members is the issue of the Equalization Fund, which is a constitutional provision of Kshs3.4 billion. When you look at the way the CRA has itemized the money for the Equalization Fund, they are talking about vaccines, hygiene and preventive health. The Equalization Fund, as far as the Constitution is concerned, is for the infrastructure. So, if this money is given to your constituency to be used for vaccines and hygiene, yet the Constitution provides that it should be used for the infrastructure, you need to be on the watch out. We might lose the money and the areas which we thought would catch up with the other areas in terms of infrastructure will not catch up. The other issue that we also need to look at is in terms of staffing, which we have proposed. There are also other cadres of staff in the health sector. We are talking of laboratory technicians, pharmaceutical technicians, medical engineers and medical records officers and physiotherapists. These are cadres that have been trained and they are languishing out there when they are supposed to be providing key services to those facilities. Suppose you have a nurse and a clinical officer and you do not have a laboratory technician, how are you going to conduct even a simple blood slid? They cannot do it. I wish to ask the Mover to look at other areas, so that this Motion can be inclusive and so that we can get a good package for our health facilities. Lastly, it is the issue of where we have devolved functions, as my Chair talked about. Out of the Kshs210 billion that will go to the counties, Kshs64 billion came from the Ministry of Health. In the Committee, we asked ourselves whether the governors and their teams are going to make sure that the Kshs64 billion that came from the Ministry of Health is going to be put in heath issues. We are talking about vaccines, immunizations and ARVs. These are issues that need to be looked into critically. We need to address the"
}