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{
    "id": 907650,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/907650/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 451,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "think that is the way to go. How do we, then, have community-based care for some of these diseases, especially mental illness, where we can have community health volunteers at the county level who are doing other things? We also need to look at the relationship among the diseases. For example, HIV can be a cause of mental illness, but also be the reason one does not die of HIV. We have community health volunteers going from community health units doing HIV work. How do we then piggy back mental health onto this community-based care for other diseases to ensure that we are promoting, preventing and screening for mental health in our country? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir that is all I have to say with regards to this. We should strengthen the research component and give that burden to the national Government so that our responses are evidence-based. We should also start de-institutionalising, because this is where people are going with mental health. Once you institutionalise, that is where the stigma and other aspects start to set in. Just listening to our colleagues debating this issue, I was cringing a lot of times just hearing the terminologies that were being used. I am glad you have taken the time to give definitions. One would ask what is in a name, but a lot is in a name. It is about time we stopped divorcing ourselves from mental health. I have heard people saying: “These people and these types, et cetera .” These people are us. Mental illness is not basically the kind where we are talking about institutional stigma. It is all of us going through life traumas that make us insane at certain points of our time. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am happy and I support this Bill 101 per cent. It is 90 per cent good, and it has taken care of the rights of everybody that is involved. Perhaps we need to strengthen co-ordination mechanisms between the different players. It is only by giving proper broad-based, comprehensive range of services and support that we can nail this. I know that people say that teenagers are killing themselves. However, we need to look at these reforms much more broadly with a view to providing a more comprehensive, family and community-based care for it to be sustainable. This is because people are moving away from institutional and health facility-based kind of care that is, perhaps, wrought with stigma and below optimal access. How does somebody in Iresa or Haboru village in Isiolo County, where the closest facility is 40 kilometres away, access it? If we legislate for a facility-based care, then we will miss the point. Let us strengthen the community-based care so that we have early intervention. After that, we should start looking at rehabilitation, not necessarily from an institutional perspective, but those that are family and community-based."
}