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"id": 917421,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
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"legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
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"content": "herbal therapies. I am happy that we are now obligating KEMSA to think outside the box. They should consider making supplies that have nutritional formulations to the county hospitals. From the presentations during the public hearings, I learnt that the nutritional therapies and the herbal therapies can also provide good solutions to the treatment of cancer. Some of those proposals were given by trained medical doctors who have interacted with patients and have an understanding of nutrition to cancer patients. This Bill is progressive. It is good when you can have a period within which to execute something. For example, when you are doing medical supplies to counties and you are putting something in the minds of those who are in charge, they need to have stocks for at least six months. That will create hope that we will have an end to this issue of shortage of drugs. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if you look at the budgetary allocations of most counties, the highest allocation is to the health department. However, in most of our health facilities, despite that endeavour by our county governments to provide for what I will call adequate finance to the health department, there is still a problem with enough medicine in the stocks. The reason they will tell you is that: “We had made requisition and were promised by the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) that these drugs will be delivered on time. However, up to now, we are waiting for these deliveries.” Therefore, if we can have a situation where, as we plan, we ensure that we are going to have stock that will last for the next six months, that will provide some solution to this issue of shortage of medicine. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, you will be surprised that other than the concerns being raised by the Ministry of Health in terms of getting the data correct, other departments do not take health as a matter where they have figures or statistics. We engaged the Ministry in charge of census, and they gave us a sample of the questionnaires that they will use for the upcoming census. You will be surprised that there is nothing on them touching on health. We asked those people: “Does it not concern you that for the Government to plan, you need to slot in something in your questionnaires where families should respond on, for example, how many families are taking care of people who are suffering from a terminal illness?” or “What is your response to the medical care that you have managed to get from the county hospitals or the referral hospitals?” It is important to have these figures on record. In our counties, we need to know the number of people who have been afflicted by cancer or any other terminal illness. We, as a country, need to see, in our budgetary allocations, that this is what we need to set aside for sufficient provision of drugs for the terminally ill patients. Moreover, we need to know, in terms of our senior citizens aged 65 and above, who are getting Medicare in our counties. Do they get sufficient supplies of medicine for the conditions they are suffering from? I was once in Australia, and you will be surprised to know that anybody there suffering from cancer gets free supply of drugs from any pharmacist. It is the responsibility of the Government to meet that cost. If you go to a hospital and the prescribed medicine is not there, you can get your prescription from any chemist, and the Government will meet the cost. I think that is the favour that we should The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}