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{
    "id": 838831,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/838831/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 185,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kisumu East, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Shakeel Shabbir",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 140,
        "legal_name": "Ahmed Shakeel Shabbir Ahmed",
        "slug": "shakeel-shabbir"
    },
    "content": "This is a country where the poor cannot afford to be sick. The poor are taken for a ride and there are gaps that have been left by the so-called authorities that are meant to be looking after the rights of the poor. The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board, the Pharmacy and Poisons Licensing Board and others have been making money and have been allowing quacks and private doctors coming from abroad to practise. In the same way, they have disallowed those medical doctors from abroad who want to come and give free medical support to this country. They have disallowed them. They really make their lives very difficult because money is the main aspect here. When you go and see a medical practitioner nowadays, whether you are a poor man or not, they want Kshs5,000 just to let you in. The other issue that is of great concern to us is drugs. I am pleading with the Chair at a later stage to address the issue of drugs. There was a time, I think in the 10th Parliament, where it was discussed and suggested that drugs should be prescribed by a doctor in generic terms. Generic terms means not in the brand term, but in the chemical term. This is because when you give the name of a brand, a brand is sometimes about 15 or 20 times more expensive than the real thing. I see there are two or three doctors in the House. I know they know what I mean. So, we would like the Departmental Committee on Health to look at this issue and perhaps talk to the medical practitioners that in future when you go to a doctor and they prescribe drugs, those drugs must be prescribed in generic terms so that we can go and find the right drug and not necessarily the one that is the most expensive. There are counterfeit drugs in this country. The Pharmacy and Poisons Board is a cartel. It is a real cartel and it only allows those ones that pay them huge amounts of money to get drugs 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."
}