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{
    "id": 882710,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/882710/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nyaribari Chache, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Richard Tong’i",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2611,
        "legal_name": "Richard Nyagaka Tongi",
        "slug": "richard-nyagaka-tongi"
    },
    "content": "Treatment is not just the only solution to this concern. We listen to the teachings of the experienced people such as the speakers who have spoken about this topic. The SDA teachings on health matters have taught extensively on matters health. They have taught us about the food we need to eat. There is a lot of teachings by Ellen G White on health matters and healthy foods. The teachings ensure that the people we are serving in our society are healthy. She understood that at a very formative stage that when people are healthy, we are able to serve them well and even as a Government we are able to function a lot better than when people are not healthy. So as leaders, we need to embrace this and make it part of the agenda. We need to have it as one of our deliverables. When we go to the constituencies, alongside talking politics, since we are influential and we are opinion shapers, we need to talk to our people about health. We need to refer to these teachings which have been done. There is a lot of research and data and we have seen this data being used and people have reciprocated very well. When people receive good health and change their way of living, the consequence is that the Government saves a lot of money which would have gone into treatment. This money will be used to serve the society by ensuring that we have roads, good health facilities and clean water. That can only be possible if as a community and as leaders we go out of our way not just to give lip service, but to make it our topic. My colleagues have talked about Burundi and Rwanda. These are countries whose Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is much less than ours but they appreciate the power of exercise. Very early in the morning you will find people jogging and it is a policy from the Government. It is a policy from the President down to everybody else. I am also happy with the First Lady. She has led by example. I wish that can be cascaded down so that our women, governors’ wives, Members of Parliaments’ wives and even Members of County Assemblies’ wives could do it at the local level with a view of ensuring that we are keeping our people healthy by exercising. Exercise mitigates most of these conditions and controls the development of these conditions ahead of time. We know diabetes has been a killer disease. It has killed a number of people in the world. It is killing even more in Kenya because people do not have enough information and they end up dying as they claim it is witchcraft. We all know that it is not witchcraft; it is simply that we do not know what it is because we have not inculcated in us the culture of doing medical checkups and tests so that we are able to unearth the complications in our systems. There are major complications which can be caused by diabetes. Stroke is one such. We have seen a number of cases of stroke in our society. Sexual dysfunction has been a cause of breakup in marriages. Families are breaking up because of diabetes. We have seen people losing memories, hearts failing and kidney failure cases rising. This can only be because our people have not taken the initiative to do screening so that they can know their diabetes levels and manage it when they still have a chance to do it."
}