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{
"id": 64689,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/64689/?format=api",
"text_counter": 442,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Kuti",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Livestock",
"speaker": {
"id": 60,
"legal_name": "Mohammed Abdi Kuti",
"slug": "mohammed-kuti"
},
"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, also the fact that only veterinary surgeons are legally recognised and registered, then it means that the animal health assistants feel very much unfairly treated. They are certificate and diploma holders, but they cannot practice. However, the fact is that they are actually the people who are mainly in the rural areas. They are the people who really take care of these animals. There is a lot of dissatisfaction even among the animal health assistants and other certificate and diploma holders in the field of veterinary medicine. This was so much so that hon. Lekuton decided to bring a Bill to this House that would create a legal existence for the para-professionals. The resultant of that would have been two parallel bodies serving the same sector. It would have become chaos to control those professionals. We were able to convince him. We are now able to table this Bill, which put both veterinary, diploma and certificate holders, which we call para- professionals, together under one law. This Bill creates a Board, which will then register veterinary doctors and also other para-professionals. Through this Bill, we will weed the sector of the bare foot vets, traditional practitioners and quacks who have no training whatsoever, but have managed to put on white coats and move around and inject our animals. They dip our animals. Sometimes, those dips have very poor quality medicine or even the quantities that are put in those dips are so low that it is ineffective and the ticks become even more resistant to that treatment. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this Bill seeks, therefore, to develop a Kenya Veterinary Board, which will register all practitioners. It will keep the register of those practitioners. It will also supervise the practice of those professionals. It will also ensure continuous education, so that professionals do not lose touch with their practice. They must go back and check out the current practices in the veterinary medicine practice. Therefore, there must be continuous education. They will also inspect the facilities for those Boards, veterinary doctors and para-professionals and ensure that high standards are maintained, so that our livestock are catered for by people who are well trained and who follow the practice to the letter. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, they will also investigate cases of malpractice. The new Constitution gives the Kenyan citizen a lot of rights and opportunity to access quality service for themselves and their livestock. Therefore, there will be bound to be complaints, unlike in the past, where people just inject your animal and the animal dies, and then say, ni bahati mbaya . So, I am sure now there will be litigations and such cases will be investigated by the Board. If a practitioner did not do what his training requires him to do, then various punitive measures can be taken by the same Board, including deregisteration. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this Bill seeks to bring to order the practice of veterinary medicine, which is now in chaos. You are fully aware that very expensive and effective antibiotics, which are supposed to be kept in specific manner, are these days kept in what is called agro vets. It is kept by shopkeepers, who on one side, will be selling sugar, farm products and seeds. On the other end, they keep very significant antibiotics that have consequences in terms of residue, resistant to diseases and even dosages. This is so much so that livestock medicine is just like over the counter medicine, such as panadol. In my constituency, people now buy antibiotics, put in a 10cc syringe, draw it, inject 5cc into the animal and the balance of 5cc, they inject into a person who has other infections such as pneumonia or malaria. So, there is a lot of abuse of veterinary medicine. I will be tabling another Bill, which is now at the Attorney-Generalâs Office; namely, the Veterinary Medicine and Poisons Bill, which also seeks to make sure that veterinary medicine is handled by veterinary doctors. They should not be handled by quacks all over the country. Being a medical doctor, I know very well that pharmacists do not pay a lot of attention to veterinary medicine as much as they pay attention to human medicine. Human antibiotics are actually kept in a smaller cube, where the pharmacist sees, while the general medicine is kept on the shelves. You will find in pharmacies that there are those restricted antibiotics and medicines, which are kept right inside in a small cube, while bigger pharmacy has cosmetics, panadols, creams and various things. You will be surprised to see veterinary medicine being part of those. In fact, veterinary medicine is kept by even shopkeepers. So, in trying to bring order to the practice of veterinary medicine, these two Bills, will control professional practice and weed out the quacks. The second one being Veterinary Medicines and Poisons Bill will take care of the medicine, so that the medicine is dispensed by people who have fully being trained. This would bring order in the practice of veterinary medicine. I would like the support of this House to pass this Bill, so that we can put in place a Board which will control the veterinary practice in this country. That will contribute to Vision 2030 because we want to access international markets by creating disease free zones. If we create disease free zones, we will like our animals. That is one of the conditions of disease free zones. The World Animal Health Organization (WAHO) supervises areas with very sensitive diseases. That organization is very keen to see in those disease free zones, how many veterinary doctors are there and whether there are other unqualified people practicing. The presence of those unqualified people and even our animal health assistants are not covered by any law. Therefore, if this law then covers that, then their checklist will be such that we will qualify for those disease free zone and access international market in terms of exporting our meat and other livestock products."
}