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{
"id": 882660,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/882660/?format=api",
"text_counter": 188,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Ndhiwa, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Martin Owino",
"speaker": {
"id": 13449,
"legal_name": "Martin Peters Owino",
"slug": "martin-peters-owino"
},
"content": "would have been prevented and life elongated. If we can empower the cadres of community health workers, they will motivate people to have self-seeking behaviour and urge people to go to a health centre or a dispensary just to check whether everything is alright. You are not sick but just concerned about your health status. It is very paramount. The only person who can do it better is a community health worker, who sits down with these people and talks to them. I have had a scenario where you can even organise a medical camp or equip a facility, but people do not come because of the health-seeking attitude. Number two, if we get the management set right, if there is no misdiagnosis, if there is no delay and we have early detection of that disease then we come to the management part of it, which is very expensive for Ndhiwa people. I am talking for poor people who are impoverished and in disenfranchised communities that do not even know where Kshs100 will come from the next day. The testing kits are very expensive. I am supporting several of them. It is very expensive to have. That is why the Government should put money. The education part of it is also there. Somebody also talked about the tax. We do not have to ask the President to remove the tax; that is the House’s decision, whether to add or remove tax. So, the onus is on us to look into these commodities not to be taxed. I would like to agree with the Mover. I think the Government does not really have to subsidise these stuff. They have to fund it. If they fund it they will save money in the end. The reason people show up with complications in high end institutions is that cases were misdiagnosed, neglected or they do not know. That is the problem we have. What I am trying to say is that instead of buying a dialysis machine which takes care of a complication of diabetes, renal failure, why do you not use much of that money in screening and educating and paying community health workers? It is a simple math. We neglect it down there, we pay expensively, including loss of lives and loss of livelihoods. As it is well structured in the information the Mover provided, prevention is key but our people have to be enabled; they have to be supported. As we talk of fruits and vegetables, there is somebody out there who cannot even buy a piece of orange. We talk of exercise. We, parliamentarians, talk of gym. In Ndhiwa, even a field to run is not there. That is why we said each constituency should have a sports academy. In the olden times when estates like Jericho and Makongeni were coming up there were recreational facilities but since the onset of grabbers, these disappeared. It should be a policy that when you are putting up an estate or anything there should be those facilities, then you can tell people to be active. Now, you tell them but where are they going to run? It is our undoing. Sometimes it is lack of water in the body that predisposes people to this condition. In my constituency there are areas where access to clean water is 20 per cent, and that is the role of the Government. So, as we talk about people’s lifestyles, we have to know that many people still need an enabler, which is the Government, to provide water, where people can exercise, enabling factors for mothers to visit clinics four times as required for early detection. Early detection is also very paramount. Screening for blood pressure and for diabetes itself is important. These are easy exercises that can be done by community health workers. I think we should do more in schools because the juvenile diabetes that we know, type 1, is no longer the only one. Even type 2 in kids and teenagers is really taking a toll on them. So screening kids in schools and working places is one of the things we should do. When it comes to treatment and self-management, insulin is very expensive for our people, just like antivenoms which people pay for yet they 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."
}