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{
"id": 927006,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/927006/?format=api",
"text_counter": 252,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 124,
"legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
"slug": "samson-ongeri"
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"content": "between 92 and 94 per cent. That is why when you see us walking here, we are panting for air because the air is potentially polluted, and we must accept that. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in China, for instance, when you go to Peking and other cities you see a lot of smoke in the air. Those are pollutants. That is why the element of cancer is fairly high in those places, but they have known how to manage these cases. Once cancer sets in, its rate of growth is so rapid that one extends from stage one to stage two, which is manageable. By the time one goes to stage three and four, they are getting to a level that is unmanageable. We are now asking: Are some of the therapies available to us today effective or aiding towards accelerating death? The drugs in the chemotherapy we give are extremely powerful, toxic and make the body very weak. They also denude the cells that are able to act as good cells, to swallow up the bad cells. What do you find? You find that instead of improving, there is also remedy. Why do we not try simple remedies in the foodstuffs that are available? Let us look at the diets that we take. I used to tell people that one of the major causes of HIV/AIDS was the level of micronutrients we ingest in the body. If they are low then the index of immunity goes down, and there is a likelihood to contract HIV/AIDS once the virus gets into the body. However, if you have a robust health, you may not be able to get to that level. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank the Mover of this Bill because there is now an opportunity to get our county governments--- Health is a fully devolved function and, therefore, we must be able to embolden and say quite categorically, as Senators who are oversighting the governors, that one area we would like to see great investments is health. It should attract 15 per cent of the annual budget of the county, in accordance with the Abuja Declaration. Secondly, we should now be able to look at the environment, public health and nutrition as major elements in preventing diseases, not necessarily cancer alone. These should be viewed as a major war against some of the diseases we are seeing today. If we get patients who have cancer at any stage, we should now make it a regular habit--- Our health workers must be trained at the dispensary level, health centre level and Level 2, 3 and 4 hospitals, to able able to do simple screens that can detect cancer in the early stage. This is because once it is detected at stage one and two, it is a manageable condition. By the time it is in stage three and four, then you go to unmanageable situations and highly voluted treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and manner of things that add up to just weakening the body and a miserable life. It is not a life that you want to live because you feel a lot of pain. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would rather change the emphasis from one of curative to preventive because we will have a larger population that we can catch at the early stage before they go to the end stage. If they are at the end stage, we have a duty as professionals to treat them in a very adequate way by improving their diets, conditions of living, easing their pain and giving palliative management, so that they can live a comfortable life before they die. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this opportunity to contribute."
}