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{
    "id": 915876,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/915876/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 348,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Murang’a CWR, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Sabina Chege",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 884,
        "legal_name": "Sabina Wanjiru Chege",
        "slug": "sabina-wanjiru-chege"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I have been here. For the benefit of Members, I only went out to take tea and came back. As the Chair, I thank my Committee for the commitment and the trips we made to Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital, the Kenyatta National Hospital, the National Spinal Injury Hospital and the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret. The reason why my Vice-Chair moved this Report yesterday is because I can see Members are interested in moving and contributing to this Report. We might be working in futility. There are major recommendations that we came up with in regards to these facilities. I want to start with the KNH. We know the drama that started with the mix-up in surgery. We went to Kenyatta and found some obsolete equipment. There is critical need for human resources in KNH, and especially in the treatment of cancer. We also looked at the staff shortfall where even nurses are acting as clerks. We went to the National Spinal Injury Hospital which is a 35- bed facility that takes care of Kenya and the East African Community (EAC). The critical equipment that is needed in these facilities is missing. His Excellency the President mentioned in his speech that mental illness is an area that we need to take keen interest in. Mathari Hospital is in very poor condition. One of the questions we asked ourselves as Members was whether it was a crime when a mental patient goes to Mathari, especially one who is a convict. They sleep on concrete floors. It is currently raining. I am not very sure of the conditions there. Their clothing is wanting. There is one nurse handling over 147 convicts with mental illness. She is a lady taking care of men. Even when we went to the correctional facilities and tried to talk to them, there is no pure ownership of these patients. Some of them have been there for more than 20 years. Because of the stigma associated with mental illness, there is no rehabilitation in place even when taking the patients back home from Mathari. Looking at the Budget, there is some money owed to the KNH by the National Land Commission that was paid by the Kenya Urban Roads Association (KURA) of almost Kshs2 billion. Nobody knows where this money is currently. There are also donor-funded projects, especially at KNH. If the Government does not match what it had agreed with the donors, some of these projects stall. It is critical because that means there are many gaps within these facilities. When somebody is referred from Murang’a to Kenyatta to receive specialist treatment, there is no proper back referral where somebody can be rehabilitated back in their counties. That is why there is a lot of congestion at KNH. The worry is that when my Committee sat, looked at this Report, reallocated some funds in our budget, and not from anywhere else, and took our recommendations to the Budget and Appropriations Committee, our recommendations were ignored. UHC is about affordability and quality of medical services. You can see the state of KNH. When we even went to the Committee of Supply, we also went further to almost plead with the Budget and Appropriations Committee to make sure that they have allocated more money to these facilities, namely, the 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."
}