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"id": 722824,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/722824/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Hon. Wambugu",
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"speaker": {
"id": 149,
"legal_name": "Clement Muchiri Wambugu",
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"content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, thank you for welcoming the students to this important House. This Bill is long overdue. Clinical officers should have been thought of a long time ago. However, in this House, people from various professions have not been having an opportunity to contribute to this country. Kudos to Hon. Leonard! That is because in his line of profession, he has come up with information which is going to help the country move in the right direction. Through this Bill, we will set the guidelines and the syllabus for our clinical officers and, thereafter, test them to the levels that the industry requires, following their licensing and registration. If we had this Bill in the past, we could not be facing the problems that we are having. Dealing with human beings and human health is a very critical issue, and especially when we have in the past, people who have not been licensed. This could have brought in very serious issues. For example, a clinical officer could handle a patient who could end up in a critical situation. Because they are not licensed, they cannot be held accountable for anything that went wrong. I believe as from now on, when we get through with the training and also the licensing, the country will be in a position to hold the clinical officers to account. On the issue of licensing and registering the training institutions that will be taking up the training for the clinical officers, you will realise that in Kenya, in the past five years, many institutions have mushroomed across the country. When they want to advertise for their courses, you find them advertising for the training of doctors and they are not qualified. They also advertise training for nurses and people in different fields. But through this, we will interrogate the type of schools that will be involved in the training of clinical officers, including nurses. As I finish, because most of the issues have been mentioned by the past contributors, the ongoing doctors’ strike in this country is a very sad issue. As a country, we rushed too fast when we are implementing the new Constitution, especially in the devolvement of functions such as health. Most of the counties were not ready to handle an important function such as the health sector, and that is why we are getting into all these problems. We need to work out a formula where the country should be transferring critical functions to the counties, only on condition that they are ready. I believe if those functions were still under the national Government, we would not have headed to that direction of strikes by nurses and doctors. As I close, I believe that the licensing of clinical officers is going to help us down at the constituencies because many dispensaries have been started there. In my case, I have over 10 dispensaries and health centres. But when they were taken over by the county governments, they have not been staffed up to now. We spent a lot of money. But when we approach the officers in charge, they tell you they would like to help. But the problem is that they do not have qualified nurses or even officers to come and man those institutions. So, the earlier they expedite the enactment of this Bill, the better for our country. With those few remarks, I support."
}