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{
    "id": 598286,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/598286/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 38,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kubai Iringo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1574,
        "legal_name": "Cyprian Kubai Iringo",
        "slug": "cyprian-kubai-iringo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker for the intervention. I was saying that we do not take health services seriously, especially in the new constitutional dispensation where we have devolved them. The problem has been escalated. It has become a quagmire and it is now a pull and push between the county governments and the national Government through the Ministry of Health. In the process of that pushing and shoving, patients who require those services are left on the receiving end. It is in the public domain that recently, patients have lost their lives in one way or the other. When you follow up to find out how that happened, there is always that element of negligence on the part of the medical personnel who are tasked to save lives. Recently, we lost an accident victim who had spent 18 hours in an ambulance. The other day, we lost a mother and her child in Western Kenya. Recently, we lost a mother because some people were negligent somewhere. In times of emergencies and disasters like floods and bomb blasts, the Red Cross personnel is more versed, quicker and equipped than our medical personnel. So, I support the fact that we need to have a curriculum which can be used to train our people so that they are always ready to deal with emergencies. We have special units even in the disciplined forces. In the Administration Police (AP), we have the Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU). We also have the General Service Unit (GSU). Even in the medical services, we have people who are trained to be nurses, doctors and clinical officers. They are mostly in hospitals waiting for patients. They conduct themselves according to how they were taught. We need people who are ready to handle emergencies wherever they are. In the olden days, we used to have what we called the “Flying Doctors”. Those doctors had small aeroplanes and helicopters which could land anywhere there was a patient or where an emergency had occurred. The doctors would go there with all the equipment, including the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipment. They would then give first-aid and upon a patient getting stable, he would be taken to the nearest hospital for further management. However, these days, when people are involved in accidents – say when a vehicle collides with another or it rolls - civilians rush to carry the injured persons like bags. They throw them into vehicles and rush them to hospital. The civilians do not have any medical training and so, they do not exercise any caution. Perhaps, if that injured person was handled by a well-trained person and with proper equipment, his or her life would be saved. We aggravate the problem by the way we handle injured persons during emergencies. 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."
}