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{
    "id": 445694,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/445694/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 276,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Wahome",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1700,
        "legal_name": "Alice Muthoni Wahome",
        "slug": "alice-muthoni-wahome"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker for this opportunity. I want to support the Report as amended and join others who have said that the Report is timely. The recommendations that have been arrived at have clearly been arrived at after wide consultations with various stake holders. I have looked at Page 4 of the Report which shows that the Committee went fairly far in consulting more than ten stakeholders in that area. The consultations revealed the challenges that the health sector has been facing since the devolution of health services. Unless we want to stand here and be hypocritical and deny--- We represent people at the grassroots level. All of us know that the health sector has not worked well and the devolution of that service may not have been well factored or timely in terms of even costing. We know that the law allows the transfer, but with the relevant costing of the devolved function. Although monies have been devolved to cater for the health services, we know that even before then, we had serious challenges in terms of personnel, their emoluments, housing, medical and pharmaceutical facilities. So, when we have a Report that clearly tells us that it is time to intervene in order to sort out the mess which we may have possibly created or seen happening, then it is unfortunate that one or two voices are coming out to say that this is another attempt to kill devolution. We are talking about Level 4 and Level 5 hospitals. Of course, referral hospital services remain at the national level. We also have a structured way of dealing with the issue that is at hand. There will be a forum where the county governments will consult and agree under the facilitation of the Transition Authority (TA) so that they can look at the issues that have now emerged and agree that we need to do this. In every constituency, we have possibly more than 15 health facilities in Level 3. It is not that the county government shall not continue to do work in the health sector. I am happy to note that this Report has clearly stated that there are issues about drugs in the counties. It also states that the workers are not happy. They have come up with their own proposals. We all know that the workers were actually refusing to be retained at the payrolls of the county governments because of the uncertainties facing their agreements - how they would be paid and issues to do with their benefits. I want to commend this Committee for moving swiftly and timely. One of the challenges that they have mentioned in this Report is that we disregard the three year period for devolution to occur and after that, there is evaluation. We have been told that unless we intervene, we are going to have a crisis. Are we going to wait and deal with a crisis or intervene at this level? We should support this Committee. They are moving under Article 187 which states that if a function or power is transferred from one level to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}