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{
    "id": 905798,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/905798/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 259,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill now brings us to the real issues. That mental health must be addressed in the context of the new Constitution and the devolved functions under the Constitution. When we look at the structure of Schedule Four, the only known mental health facility in the country, Mathari Mental Hospital is classified as a national referral hospital. So, it is in the ambit of the national Government. I hope that by the passage of this Bill, counties will then be empowered with sufficient resources to have facilities alongside the existing normal hospitals that take care of mental health situations. We should not mistake a situation where a person feels low in the morning, he or she walks to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) to see a doctor and explains that he or she is not feeling too well today, and they feel like doing something unorthodox. That is different from the situation we know. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you go to villages and because of families fearing the stigma, they have locked away mental patients in houses. They are fed through the window. They are never let to see sunlight and when they come out, they are chained. My distinguished colleague from Elgeyo-Marakwet likes to quote the Bible where mental patients were chained and left in places that were bizarre. They were kept in the same houses with pigs. In fact, when Jesus exorcised demons from the Gerasene Demoniac, he released them into pigs that raced into the sea and drowned. This means that it where they belonged"
}