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{
    "id": 836536,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/836536/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 80,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "“29. (1) The management of a home which is established by the county government shall not refuse to admit into the home, an older member of society. (2) An older member of society shall not be admitted into a home without the older member of society’s consent unless the older member of society suffers from a mental infirmity that renders the older member of society incapable of giving such consent. (3) Where an older member of society is unable to give his or her consent under subsection (2), the consent of a person authorised to give such consent under any written law or pursuant to a court order shall suffice. (4) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (2), the management of a home shall inform the older member of society of the intended admission where the older member of society is capable of understanding notwithstanding the fact that the older member of society’s mental infirmity renders the older member of society incapable of giving the required consent.” I do not think that we should be totally tying the county homes because the issue of capacity is one thing to look at. If there is a fine or a jail sentence to be imposed, we should go a little bit deeper and say under what circumstances this refusal is denied. The fact that it is done in the county with the age limit being very low - the former Attorney-General and I can attest - 60 years is still quite young. We have a lot of people claiming these services and wanting to go into that home and maybe the capacity may not allow at that particular time. Even as we plan to give all these services, maybe we need a little bit of more research to look into how we can implement this Bill. Where do we start? It is quite huge and open. Maybe when it comes to implementation, it might not take root as fast as we envisage. What are the priority areas? When a home is to be given a license, what are the minimum basics they need, the maximum or whatever we want to call them? The home might not have everything the way we have put it down in the Bill. We need to give the implementation of this Bill a human face. A lot of people will feel anxious going to a home just because it is for the elderly. To make the older people comfortable, we should make it as homely as possible. One way of doing that is involving the communities and families as opposed to making it a Government institution. At that stage of life, one needs a bit of homely feeling. I saw one such home in Thogoto run by the Women’s Guild, which I am proud to be a member. They have allowed people to come with some of their personal items like decorations and pictures; and there is a lot of passion from those who give this care. We cannot just have employees working in this kind of institutions; we need to have people with passion to volunteer to support the old people. My appeal here is if the Committee - they may say that there are no funds to do such a thing - not all of them, but just a few Members and the sponsor of the Bill, Sen. Cheruiyot, should go for some bench-marking. They could visit two or three countries where these services are available. Some Scandinavian countries are very good examples. 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."
}