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{
    "id": 915749,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/915749/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 221,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Cecily Mbarire",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13166,
        "legal_name": "David Ole Sankok",
        "slug": "david-ole-sankok"
    },
    "content": " Thank you Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me an opportunity to also add my voice to this particular Motion. Let me begin by congratulating the Departmental Committee on Health for a job well- done, but allow me to focus mainly on the MNTRH. The reason I want to do this is that the issue of mental health in Kenya has been ignored. It has not been taken seriously. We are now facing serious tragedies across the country. We have people committing suicide, especially young people. We are having cases where spouses are killing each other. It is not so much because times have changed or individuals have changed. We have a higher rate of mental health problems in this country. As per the Kenya Mental Health Policy (KMHP) of 2015-2030, they say that one in every four Kenyans will come across some form of mental disorder in their lifetime. This is very high. If you read the Report about the MNTRH, we see a very sad state in terms of the way our Government is responding to matters mental health. The biggest concern is the fact that we are told that only 29 hospitals in the entire country, between Level 4 and only one referral hospital, have mental health services. They are not properly taken care of or equipped. What has shocked me is that that the only public institution in the country that is offering specialised psychiatrist services has no enough facilities. It has been almost in the same state since the 1970s yet it has an average bed occupancy of 119 per cent. That means it has more patients to take care of than it can manage. The bigger challenge is that they are saying they do not have enough staff. They say that the only positive development they have had in the last years is a 200KVA transformer, one staff van, three water tanks and an outpatient clinic that was built. In terms of human resource, they say that only 10 nurses have been employed over the last many years and one psychologist. The sad thing is that this country has only 92 well trained or fully trained psychiatrists. So, one of the biggest challenges the hospital is facing is that it does not have its own budget. They do not have autonomy. They work under a department in the Ministry of Health. For example, they had a development Vote of Kshs75 million which was reduced to Kshs18 million in the 2017-2018 Financial Year. They had money for buying medication which was dropped from Kshs17million to Kshs2.6million. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, it clear that issues of mental health are not taken seriously as we expect. The biggest challenge the Ministry for Health is facing is ensuring that we have the right amount of money for this hospital to offer state of the art mental health services. Part of the reason mental health is not taken seriously is that we have a serious stigma attached to it in this country. We do not refer to somebody as mentally ill but we say that he is mad. The truth of the matter is that mental health is here with us. It affects our children, grown- The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}