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"id": 784737,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Cheruiyot",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13231,
"legal_name": "Gladwell Jesire Cheruiyot",
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"content": "Normally, I like being very independent in my mind. I urge Members that when we are dealing with matters health, we should not go the political way. This is because when it comes to matters health, today it is another person and tomorrow it is you. If it is not you directly, it could be you through another person. So, we should not politicise it so that we can actually have a better facility that can serve this country. I have looked at those issues in three dimensions. What I saw as a problem is the workload. The members of staff of KNH are, generally, over-stretched, especially the professionals. As opposed to the World Health Organization (WHO) requirements where a nurse is supposed to handle five patients, a nurse at KNH handles 30 patients – six times more than the international requirement – and you expect that person to give quality service! I want to believe that because of workload and confusion, a person can commit errors which are professional in nature. Secondly, if you want to know the truth of the matter, we are told that 70 per cent of the work in the theatre is done by registrars. Those registrars - as you have been told by the doctor, who is my senior - are students who go there on attachment. We realised in our findings that they do 70 per cent of the work, which shows that there is a big shortage. When we conducted our investigation, we were told that the facility is under-staffed by over 1,000 technical people. This means that instead of pointing fingers and complaining left, right and centre, we need to employ more professionals in that facility to curb the overload of the workers. We recently heard that the country wants to import some doctors from Cuba. This shows that there is a shortage even on the doctors’ side. The other thing that I realised is that the facility has turned into a walk-in facility like everyone else has said. It is our duty in this House to look into it and see what we can do to turn this facility back into a referral hospital, rather than a walk-in hospital as it is today. The truth of the matter is that there is a systemic problem in the Ministry of Health. Generally, the Ministry is failing, maybe, because of devolution. I do not want to say that, that is the only reason, but when the dispensaries, health centres and even Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) do not work well, it means that the systemic problem must be handled. If we sit here and talk about individuals, we will not solve this problem. We should take KNH back to its core mandate of dealing with referrals. The other thing that I noticed is the financing of this institution. From the look of things, KNH is under-financed by the National Treasury. Under-financing of KNH is one of the problems that are plaguing the facility. I have also realised that the counties are draining KNH financially because the allocations given to the facilities in the counties are not used according to the ratios or the population on whose basis the money was calculated. Almost all the patients are going to KNH and are using up the money for the hospital which was not intended for them. We also realised that there are a lot of waivers in KNH. A number of patients who go there have their fees waived in millions, not just hundreds and thousands. Who talks about those waivers? What happens? Eventually, there shall be a gap. Who fills it? Those are the issues we need to know because if we continue complaining, we will not get to the nitty-gritty’s and solve the matters of health in this country. I know we might have rushed to devolve the health function but, the truth of the matter is that a disease or an outbreak does not have boundaries. You cannot know which patient will be affected. In the first place, it is a raw deal. However, when we are here, we only need to talk of what we can do in the circumstances we are in. As we handle matters of KNH, it is also important and prudent that we think of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) as a national facility at the same level as KNH. We should not forget Mathare National Teaching and The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}