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{
    "id": 597445,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/597445/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 258,
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    "content": "You will see children performing in music festivals by way of sign language because they cannot speak. Thinking of what would have happened without that school, then you can see as a nation how many people we have failed because of certain challenges that they might have. When you think about other heroes that we have in our nation, whom we do not really recognize--- For instance, in the Olympics, we have so many people who bring gold medals to our nation although they are physically challenged. In America, Sweden or other places, people will run to them wanting to get photographs and so on. Mr. Speaker Sir, it is time for us to rise up and place the Kipchumba’s and athletes that we have to where they belong. We should learn to look at our heroes not in the prism of ethnicity, but in the achievement prism. Then at some point and place in time, then we can look at it as Kenyans and say we are proud of Sen. Harold K. Kipchumba, as well as to be Kenyans because one of us has made a great achievement. Mr. Speaker Sir, we have to appreciate, in view of acknowledging and being aware of, as stated in the Motion; for religious and cultural reasons, there are those who refuse their children, members of their families to go and visit a doctor or to go to hospital. It is a right of a child to go and see a doctor. It should never be accepted that because of religious beliefs or cultural practices, you will refuse a child from seeing a doctor. If an adult does not want to see a doctor, that is their problem and they should be permitted to do so because they are adults. To refuse a child to see a doctor as a result of unknown cultural or religious beliefs is an abuse to the child, and the Government has a responsibility to force the situation and ensure that the child is taken to hospital. Therefore, the fact that this practice exists is an abuse to the system, rights of the child and must not be allowed to continue because there are those people who have got genes in them, just like the Mover of the Motion said, but is protected in advance and it is possible that they will grow up without polio rather than grow up with polio, had they visited doctors in advance. So, Cultural and religious beliefs must be of positive impact in our society. Practices, whether cultural or religious, that impact negatively in our society, particularly to children must not be allowed to persist in a modern nation, as we are in today. There is a question of medicine and health that arises out of this Motion. We are all aware that there are those who would have been able, and would have not been disabled had they been properly diagnosed, properly treated when they went to hospital. Therefore, the issue of medicine and health is one that we must raise; and those in this House who are doctors and have been in the medical field should help the House to make laws that will ensure that we take up the training and exposure for our doctors as a national concern. It would be nice to hear of exchange programmes between our doctors in Kenyatta hospital and other big hospitals in a country like India. This will help us to know that our doctors are being globally exposed and trained. We have heard of horrific stories where persons are improperly diagnosed or misdiagnosed and then live with disabilities in their whole life time. A case in point; when I visited India with Sen (Dr.) Machage, we witnessed a situation where a lady had her leg amputated here in Kenya, because of some diagnosed condition only to reach India and be told by the doctors there, that she did not have to lose her leg. When you 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."
}