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{
"id": 876475,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/876475/?format=api",
"text_counter": 429,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 440,
"legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
"slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
},
"content": "have gone to the right to housing, water, education, or health and attainable health standards. Talking about health, this is one area that our counties have greater obligation. It saddens me, as the Senator for Elgeyo-Marakwet County, and as a Senator in this great Republic, that the state of health in this nation is appalling. Yes, we thank devolution because some of our counties have invested in health. However, the standards are deteriorating. For instance, in my county, the first few years of devolution, the county had put a lot of effort in ensuring that the health facilities have been equipped and improved. However, at the moment, if you go to Iten County Referral Hospital, the standards are appalling. The workers who are there are demolished by the payment. In that hospital, you have an accountant, for instance, being on contract and being paid very little amount of money compared to the money that is expected to fund that county hospital. If you go to Chebiemit Hospital, you will find that in the absence of a room to put equipment and very small issues here and there, the county is unable to fund structures to accommodate the medical leasing equipment distributed by the national Government. If there is an area that I will encourage Senators, as soon as we start our oversight responsibility with the resources, we have to audit clearly the health sector. We must audit how much counties are raising. Most of our counties are raising little amounts of money compared to what they are expected to raise. Why? Since devolution came in, own source revenue has become a cash cow. One of the worst things that is happening in the counties is that, even the money that is raised from the hospitals itself, very little is being given to finance the hospital itself. Madam Temporary Speaker, if there is a place that I really hope I will come back to this House within this year, to have done a thorough analysis and oversight, is the health department of Elgeyo-Marakwet County. That is a department that we thought it had hope in the first few years of devolution, but the standards are now deteriorating. I have had a conversation with Senators that most of the counties are going back. People talking about, you go to a hospital and the only thing that you find there are painkillers like Panadol, or that prescriptions are given in hospitals, but you have to go and buy medicine from a private entity. I have an analysis as to why my county health sector is in such a state, only to establish that the leadership of the health department in Elgeyo-Marakwet County is wanting. The people who are running it, have no capacity. To a greater extent, it is because everybody in the county is running around to enrich and benefit themselves to the extent that our county health sector goals are not being achieved. People of such counties or our citizens must have a right to have a conversation with their county government. In any case, Article 176 of the Constitution talks about county governments being the government of the people, and that the people will have a right to make decisions that affect them. In fact, the Constitution talks about their own local government."
}