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{
    "id": 759839,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/759839/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 119,
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    "content": "disability and disability leads to poverty. When you are poor, thus you cannot immunize your children and your family, they may end up having polio hence being disabled. When you are disabled and you cannot get access to education, health and opportunities, then you end up being poor. It is true. If you look at the economic power of persons with disabilities, it is really very low. It is for this reason that the Jubilee administration has had very good programmes to empower such disadvantaged groups of people like the preferential procurement that seeks to increase the businesses of persons with disabilities. However, we are yet to be there. The face of begging in this country is typified by persons with disability. Indeed, they are highly over represented in that very category. If you look at the completion rates in schools, there is high attrition from basic education to higher education. This happens because a lot of persons with disabilities also have impairment. It is good to educate this House that, indeed, there is a difference between impairment and disability. While impairment is any form of bodily loss of function that can be as a result of injury, illness or congenital condition, disability just like gender, is a social construct that results from the interaction between persons with various forms of impairment. There can be as many impairments as there are individuals. There can also be various barriers, primarily environmental and attitudinal. Environmental can be natural or the built environment or attitudinal barriers around the social stratification and power relations that do exist within our public fabric and mosaic. We need to address the issue of how we can ensure that persons with disabilities access health services as and when they do require. We are all aware that one of the most important things that segregate this society is access to health care services. This is because there is one for the poor, which is public hospitals, and there is one for the rich, which is private healthcare. In this country, private healthcare is very big. It is not similar to the ones in other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom (UK). In the UK, the National Health Service benefits people. I am reminded of that because I used to be a student there. If health is accessed based on how much you earn, it, therefore, follows that persons with disabilities cannot access it. This is because of poverty issues, lack of opportunities and lack of inclusion. A mother with an autistic child, who has to be there every day to care for this child, will obviously reduce her chances of participating in gainful employment. When the child is sick, they still have to pay the bills. For people with disabilities, you will realize that there is a very high prevalence of single mother headed households. It is also a gender issue because you will realize that there is a very high prevalence of children with disabilities being taken care of by single mother-headed households. A person with albinism – and I wish my good friend, Sen. Olekina, would be here because at some point he asked why I wear caps to Parliament – would require to apply sunscreen lotion everyday of their lives. One bottle of sunscreen lotion costs US$20 a month; how many families can afford Kshs2,000 or thereabout for that? How many people who are totally blind or visually impaired would afford to even buy spectacles, and we know very well that they are very expensive? Those with physical impairments would require visiting Physio and occupational services. There are so many health-related needs that would necessitate that access to medical healthcare for persons"
}