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{
    "id": 82218,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/82218/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 41,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang’-Nyong’o",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Medical Services",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to reply. (a) The Kenyatta National Hospital’s Radiotherapy Department has two radiotherapy machines. Unfortunately, one is currently broken down and is irreparable. The Hospital is in the process of procuring another machine at the cost of Kshs110 million. The space in the department and the staffing levels can support operations of two radiotherapy machines. Patients take long to secure radiotherapy at the hospital due to two main reasons. First, radiation treatment is a process which can only be commenced after thorough review by clinicians who are very few at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). Presently, there are only four cancer specialists at the KNH and in the Ministry of Medical Services as a whole. These four specialists are Dr. Opiyo, Dr. Njuguna, Dr. Catherine Nyongesa and Dr. Bwao. (b) Kenyatta National Hospital is the only public facility with cancer treatment facilities and the number of patients is extremely high. Since patients come from all over the country and the neighbouring countries and the available machine can only treat 140 patients per day it is not possible to avoid delays in the provision of services to patients. Presently, cancer is the third highest cause of death after infectious and cardiovascular diseases. (c) The available Radiotherapy machine has the capacity to treat about 70 patients during normal working hours. It is able to treat 140 patients only because the hospital has upscaled the number of working hours from eight to 17 hours a day; that is from 7.00 a.m up to midnight. It is worth noting that most cancer patients treated in the unit present themselves as emergency cases. The department sorts them out and gives them priority treatment within its capacity limitations. The waiting period, unfortunately, is usually not less than 30 days. (d) In the short-term, the KNH is in the process of acquiring a Cobalt Unit for cancer treatment at a cost of US$1.35 million which will be commissioned in February, 2011. In the long-term, the Ministry plans to aggressively pursue cancer prevention campaigns and decentralization of cancer treatment to the provincial hospitals. For that matter, we have already opened outlet facilities at the Coast General Hospital and the New Nyanza General Hospital. In this regard, a national task force to study and recommend improvement in cancer management was commissioned by me early this year. We are currently working to have a much more comprehensive cancer policy and cancer treatment in the country."
}