HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 787194,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/787194/?format=api",
"text_counter": 180,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Simiyu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 141,
"legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
"slug": "david-eseli"
},
"content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me this chance to contribute to this Motion. I support the Motion as amended. I hasten to add that all the things that have been said about KNH are true. There is overcrowding, understaffing, underfunding and ill equipping. All those are true. Probably, much more is happening. However, while I support this Report, I would like to alert the House and the nation that we are treating a symptom. We are not treating the disease. The healthcare sector in this country is on its deathbed. There is a serious disease in the healthcare sector. We need to look at it holistically. It has been bad all along. It has been ill all along. But, it got acutely so at the time of devolution. I lay this blame on the previous Council of Governors (CoG) which went and convinced the President to devolve, at one full swoop, health services. The national Government was to check whether the county governments were ready to run that function and if they were not ready, they were to be facilitated to be ready before devolution happened. But now that devolution happened in such a precipitate manner, it has led to the acute state that healthcare is in, in the country at the moment. For us to remedy the situation, we need to bring all the players together to talk and find solutions because when you look at the County Government Act, indeed it allows a county government to liaise with the national Government and give up certain functions that they are incapable of or are having difficulty running. My advice would be that we need to put our heads together so that they all know that good healthcare drives the economy. Many people have never been able to relate healthcare and the economy. When healthcare fails, economic growth also fails. That is one critical factor that we need to come, sit together and find out how best to do it. One area they can start from is the devolution of the human resource for the health sector. I think that is one area that we need to look at and perhaps ask the national Government through the Health Services Commission to take it back, so that we are able to take care of the personnel much better. On this issue of being overworked, I guess I went through it also. I did my internship at KNH. I practiced at KNH before I joined politics and came to this House. I did my postgraduate training at KNH and indeed, you would leave in the morning and go to work, attend lectures, do your work in the clinic or in the ward that you were allocated, then at night you were on duty. So you would not go home. You were on duty. Come morning, you were going back to class, you were going back to the clinic and to the ward that you were allocated. So, you were in that hospital day and night for quite some time before you went back home. So, the issue of overwork has always been there but now it is even worse with the overcrowding. The hospital is just overcrowded. If you go there during visiting hours, you will think it is market day and people are hurrying to the market. The place is just overcrowded unless we talk with the county governments and look at how best to solve it. Nairobi County, for example, used to have a Nairobi Health Management Board. I do not think the county government has set up that board again. We need that board to help decongest Kenyatta. So, we need to look at this thing holistically. When you end up with people who are overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, dehumanized and grossly downgraded as the healthcare workers are, then it is a recipe for disaster. In fact, I am surprised that this is the first time we are getting this kind of disaster. I expect this to happen more often unless we do something about the generalized healthcare. Take 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."
}