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{
    "id": 383844,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/383844/?format=api",
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    "content": "is what we used to call health centres. Level 4 is what we used to call district level and Level 5 is the provincial level. Certainly these facilities might not be built in every area because there are counties which already have Level 5 hospitals. So, they do not need to demand facilitation for that construction. Counties that have the former provincial hospitals, those were already Level 5 hospitals. So, we do not need to recreate new Level 5 hospitals. It is also important to note that in heavily populated counties, you could have more than one Level 5 hospital just by upgrading in terms of facilitation of the existing hospitals in those counties. That answers questions raised by Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale who said that in his county which has 12 constituencies, there is need to have more than one Level 5 hospital. This was also raised by the Senator for Kiambu. So, it does not mean that you can only have one Level 5 or Level 4 hospital in a particular are. If need be and if resources are available, a region can have more than one level 5 hospital. A region can even improve their Level 5 hospitals to Level 6 hospitals. So, the levels as envisaged in the nomenclature in the hospital at this time, we talk of services and not just names for houses. That is an important point that I wanted to raise and appreciate that all the political parties in this country had this as a major agenda in their manifesto. My own political party, ODM, had health services as a major issue. Since we have a Jubilee Government, I have some extracts of their own manifesto. The manifesto says that they intend to achieve free primary health care for all Kenyans by increasing financing from 6 per cent to 15 per cent which is actually in the Abuja Declaration. They intend to increase the number of physical facilities at the community and increase mobile health clinic services which I have just tabled as a Motion to be considered by this House. Apart from the intention to improve the formation of National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), they intend to achieve free primary health care for all Kenyans by increasing health funding from 6 per cent to 15 per cent and increase the number of physical facilities at community level. So, what I have moved in this House is not my own imagination, but a demand by the people of this country. They need to have improvement of their health care facilities at that level. Of course, the best intervention for medical care is looking at the primary health care as was proposed yesterday by Sen (Dr.) Khalwale. That is the focus; prevention is better than cure. Madam Temporary Speaker, the population of Kenya at Independence was Seven Million, but we are now at 42 million. This is an exponential type of explosion of population. Therefore, the facilities that were actually put in place at that time are totally inadequate. So, we just have to increase those facilities to be in tandem with the population increase. So, facilitating the improvement of these facilities must not be done by putting up new buildings, but improving what already exists. There are some areas where these facilities were never put up like in Turkana and Mandera which does not have one consultant. We really need these facilities to be put in place so that the lives of all Kenyans everywhere in this country are equal. That is a constitutional requirement. With those few remarks, I beg to move. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}