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{
    "id": 813196,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/813196/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 195,
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    "content": "amongst Kenyans. We are talking about 20 to 40 per cent or one out of four Kenyans who may be afflicted in one way or the other with a mental illness. If you translate that into statistics, it is about 11.5 million Kenyans who are afflicted in one form or the other of mental illness. It has, therefore, become a health burden in society that needs to be addressed, analysed and categorised. It is a health burden that needs to be analysed and categorised. It should be dealt with more effectively without shying away. One of the things that we need to know is the hard statistics that we have in our hands. When I was at the University of Nairobi, we were training most of the doctors and nurses. It is quite clear to us now. Even as I stood as the Minister for Health in 1991, in the Health Act that has been referred to, it was quite clear to me that we had paucity or very few figures of properly trained psychiatrists in this country. Up to date, we have about 88 psychiatrists in this country. That is a pathetic figure. We have hardly 427 nurses who are trained to handle psychological cases, some of them bordering in the level of depression. When you look at these and the volume of the clientele they are likely to handle, which is 11.5 million, it is a drop in the ocean. It is just a scratch on the surface of the ocean. Therefore, it is incumbent upon any state that has a disease burden of this magnitude to put into place the measures that are available. What is the main problem? Any patient or person who requires hospitalization has a right to health. However, the beds are not enough. If you talk of Mathari, which is a national mental hospital, it only has a bed capacity of 700. There are other small health centres here and there which have smaller capacities. The second largest would be Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), which has a bed capacity of about 70. Therefore, we have very limited space available to attend to people who have mental illness. Madam Temporary Speaker, now that health is a devolved function, mental health will squarely fall within county governments. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the national Government and county governments to set up these facilities because the population needs them. Kenyans are very peculiar people. When they hear about mental illnesses, there are perceptions. Some believe that mental illness requires a traditional healer. That is why you find traditional healers thriving through ignorance, in the pretence that they know how to handle mental illnesses. That is why you find people shying away and thinking that it is a spiritual matter; that somehow their spirits are disturbed. Therefore, they approach the religious people to attend to them in this manner. In the process, we are destroying the people who are sick. Once you resort to the spiritual groups and traditional healers, they will not get the appropriate treatment. What is so interesting is that these are treatable conditions. That is the beauty about the whole thing. Once you clearly define the causes of these mental illnesses, they are treatable like any other causes of any other illnesses in any hospital. We should integrate mental health with primary healthcare. There should be no desegregating, other than those who show what I call compulsive tendencies towards physical manifestations, fighting or destroying things. Those may be confined in other rooms, while we attend to their mental illnesses. Madam Temporary Speaker, there is depression. Even the Senators, I included, at one time or the other, have depression, especially when we approach the elections. You The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}