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{
    "id": 886567,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/886567/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 237,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, Sir. There is a quote that Martin Luther King once gave in September, 1960 at the Golden Anniversary Conference. He said that it is a trite yet true observation that if America is to remain a first class country, it cannot have a second class citizen. This is true for Kenya as well. If Kenya is to remain a first class country, it cannot have a second class citizen. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you saw how when the doctors from Cuba were being received in Kenya, governors were falling over themselves trying to welcome them. Some gave them houses with swimming pools; going beyond the extra mile to make them comfortable, as if they are more special than the Kenyan doctors who left. In the same breath, the Kenyans who went to Cuba are living in conditions that are not befitting people who we have trained, and least of all, of the medical profession. It cannot be that as a country, we value foreigners more than we value our own people, because even such a country cannot then respect Kenya as a country. For us whether it is our mission abroad or our Ministry, we are okay with the ill treatment of Kenyans living in squalor, yet they are doctors, but over here, we are going beyond the extra mile to provide luxuries to the Cuban doctors. Mr. Speaker, Sir, just the other day, we were discussing in the House how there are certain diseases - and I remember Sen. Malalah was trying to describe - which cannot be described apart from in mother tongue in the villages that these doctors cannot understand. When the Kenya Medical Association (KMA) says that the family medicine programme in Cuba is not recognized by the international community and in Kenya, we are not taking them seriously. When the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union ( KMPDU )is saying that they are opposed to the manner in which the deal was executed, in complete disregard of the established procedures for licensing and deployment of foreign medical personnel and selection of training programs, we are not taking them seriously. That is why we wanted Sen. Omogeni and the Committee on Health to give us more details of what this arrangement was. Are these Kenyan doctors there on forced labour? Are they captive? Why is it that if they want to come back home, they cannot? This is more than a health issue. This is a health and labour relations issue, because they have rights as any other employees of Government. It must be looked at in all other aspects. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we are being told that these doctors are complaining of highhandedness at the Kenyan Embassy. Any Kenyan who is not in this country must be able to see our embassies and consulates as a fortress and home; that if they go there, they are received and treated with the dignity they deserve. We see it with other countries. If you touch an American, you will be taken to that embassy of--- They know that they are at home and protected. Mr. Speaker, Sir, let us take this matter seriously. We cannot allow the mistreatment of a Kenyan anywhere in this world, if we are to truly be a first class country."
}