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{
    "id": 598345,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/598345/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 97,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Dawood",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2572,
        "legal_name": "Abdul Rahim Dawood",
        "slug": "abdul-rahim-dawood"
    },
    "content": "train our people in emergency care. At the moment, we have haphazard responses to emergencies such as when buildings collapse and nobody knows how to rescue those people trapped inside. Once a building collapses, many people make mistakes when removing a person trapped under the rubble and putting him on a stretcher. If he is not handled well, the person may damage his spine or other internal organs. We need that to be done effectively. The Red Cross is doing a lot with regard to that, but we need specialised training because there are some situations which the Red Cross may not be able to handle. The Red Cross is doing very well. An emergency is a serious, unexpected and often dangerous situation which requires immediate action. That is very vital. If we do not handle such a situation in the way it needs to be handled, we will probably do more damage than good to the person we are trying to help. There was an incident in the old North Imenti Constituency about six or seven years back. You may have heard of the young girls from Loreto Convent, Msongari who had an accident. The young girls were going to Isiolo. They missed a turning at Subuiga and the bus rolled. They were supposed to sit for their exams a few months from then, but it was sad because some of the girls lost their limbs. In addition to emergency care, we should also have trauma centres. The parents did not know exactly what had happened to the children. We can talk about people who need emergency care, what about the relatives of the people who are injured in that emergency? About six girls lost their limbs and we also lost two or three girls in that accident. Since there was no emergency treatment on the ground, we could not re-attach some of the girls’ hands. Even for the girl who lost her life, we had to go to the mortuary to look for her hand. We had about 10 hands and we did not know which hand would match which girl. It was so traumatic for the parent to even identify her daughter’s hand so that she could bury her daughter with the right hand. We need a trauma centre because we need somebody to take care of that. The other issue is lack of equipment. We can attend to an emergency and take the victims to hospital, but do we have the capacity in our hospitals to handle those emergencies? A recent case would be the one of the Nyeri Provincial General Hospital. I read in the news reports that the whole ICU department had gone for training in Italy for two weeks. I did not understand how a whole emergency department can close down for training. What happens in case somebody gets an emergency or has to go to the ICU? Even the renal unit is still closed to this day because people have gone for training. Why can the training not be done in Kenya so that some people are left to man the station instead of closing the whole place? The Health Ministry needs to work with the county government to know what happened. We have heard of medical emergencies where people stay in an ambulance for more than 18 hours and are not attended to because of lack of money or an ICU bed. The other day, a lady in Kiambu lost her life because people logged out of work when they were not supposed to. That is why we need those people to be trained in medical care and be passionate about working in those situations. Those situations are very emotional for the families involved. When their relatives do not access emergency care, the families would be really hurt. I do not envy them. I do not know what I would do in a situation where I lost anybody when it was possible to save their lives. We need to come up with ways where we hold persons involved in emergency treatment responsible for any mishaps. Nobody wants those kinds of situations. They are unfortunate and unexpected. The other issue which has featured in the contributions of my colleagues this morning is ambulances. Ambulances need right of way. Many a time, they are stuck in traffic and cannot go anywhere. We need special lanes, not just for ambulances, but for emergency vehicles and police 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."
}