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{
    "id": 882720,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/882720/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 248,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nyatike, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Tom Odege",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13459,
        "legal_name": "Tom Mboya Odege",
        "slug": "tom-mboya-odege"
    },
    "content": "can state it authoritatively, is that those Kenyans suffering from this disease and are not known are double this figure. They are suffering down there and nobody can reach them. These cases have never been reported anywhere and yet we talk about half a million people when we know over a million people are dying in silence. The people who have come out to report their cases or go to the facilities for treatment are very few. In rural areas, such people come out when it is too late and the drugs are too expensive for them. So, as a House that makes laws and represents people, we need to come out and declare that diabetes treatment in this country should be made free. Examination or tests for diabetes should be made free and mandatory so that we can intervene at an opportune time and manage these conditions. With regard to the diabetes drugs out there, without support from the Government, one cannot afford them. In fact, 99 per cent of Kenyans cannot afford those drugs. Even for those who can afford them, drugs are not available. So, you will find people going for cheap diabetes drugs which do not help them. Look at the drugs we import into this country. Our own way of testing efficacy of drugs is also wanting. Go to the chemists where we buy drugs from majority of the drugs we buy are either expired in the country of origin or are fake. So we end up pumping chalk to our people which does not cure them. We then say people are not responding to treatment while in the real sense we are not treating these people. I want to suggest here that we should go an extra mile and re-examine the health system in this country. What we feel cannot be managed by the county governments, let us be bold enough and say those functions be taken up by the national Government and we make treatment of cancer, diabetes, HIV and AIDS and hypertension free to be managed by the national Government for the benefit of our people. That way, we will save this country from unnecessary deaths, sufferings and expenditure. Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I support."
}