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{
    "id": 847031,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/847031/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Turkana Central, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Nakara Lodepe",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2926,
        "legal_name": "John Lodepe Nakara",
        "slug": "john-lodepe-nakara"
    },
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I stand to support this Motion, and join my colleagues who have given some statistics. Some have given proposals on how to tackle this problem. According to the statistics given here by African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) Health Africa, Kenyans who suffer from fistula are 6 million in this country. Imagine that! Six million women in this country are suffering from fistula. Those who visit Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) know that men are at 10 per cent of those patients. That means that, for every 10 patients with fistula in this country, one is a man. This means our people are suffering. This is a life-threatening disease which we need to see how to tackle to help our people. They have given some causes of that disease. Those causes can be avoided by having specialists in our hospitals where our women go to deliver. We need to provide specialised training and subsidise its treatment because most Kenyans are poor. The Government should come up with a programme that can provide specialised training to specific people on that disease. As you know, treatment in this country is very expensive. Some people cannot afford it. Unfortunately, most of the people who suffer from that disease are poor. They cannot afford the expenses. I agree with Members that the cost needs to be subsidised so that even the poor can afford. More than that, we need a cover that can be given free to anybody suffering from that disease so that we can save lives in this country. Despite what we have heard from other Members, we lack specialists in this country. One of the Members has said that we have only 15 specialists of that disease in this country. Compare the 6 million people who are suffering from that disease in this country with 15 specialists. That number cannot add up. So, we need to train more specialists on that area because we are losing lives. This is a life-threatening disease. We also cannot afford to lose our people through lack of access to maternity care. This is by providing skilled care and making facilities available, especially for people who are suffering from that disease. We can afford as a country. Another cause of that problem is poverty. We can afford that by giving every person who suffers from that disease a medical cover. We can include it in the NHIF or the Government pays or the county governments provides or even the NG- CDF. That is so that we can save lives. We need to discourage harmful traditional practices like FGM; we need to discourage them. You will find somebody practising that traditional ritual at this age. Such people need to be dealt with so that we can save lives. In conclusion, we also want to deal with people who commit sexual violence. When rapists do harm to our young girls, they go on with life without any problem. The laws of this country need to be tightened so that whoever destroys a person’s life through rape is dealt with seriously, so that we can save the lives of our young girls. With those few remarks, I support. Thank you."
}