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"id": 943862,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/943862/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Ali",
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"speaker": null,
"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you go to some areas, you will see some few community health workers running up and down. When I was in the medical profession and perfecting, you could see the subordinate staff that have stayed there since the 60s. When I joined in the late 90s, some of them were better than even the doctors who were trained. They could do everything up to the level of being a caesarian section. This is because they have enough experience and were given the opportunities, but now even doctors cannot do those things. Moi University was trying to train community doctors at the beginning until it failed and now they had to go back to the real things. This country does not only require people who will sit somewhere and prescribe. You will need people who should go to the ground. The earlier days, we used to have public health officers and public health technicians who were in every location and sub locations. Nowadays those services do not exist. When you talk about health, you do not only talk of human health; there is also animal health and whatever else you eat. All these things are intertwined, and people have to help one another. We used to have livestock inspectors and extension officers who would go to the farms. All these people would come together and see whether the water is good enough. They would inspect the grasses and pools where malaria can breed, and find ways of dealing with all those things. It is not the so-called multi-sectoral approach now, which is now harassing people here with security issues. We had multi-sectoral groups coming from agriculture, health and education, who were helping people in the rural areas, and things were effective. The issue which Sen. Wetangula was talking about – the cow dung and these things – are done everywhere. Sometimes we used the barks of trees to go and smoke the houses, and you could see the mosquitoes and other insects disappearing. This is because in some homesteads, like the Maasai type of homesteads, human beings and animals live together, and these things were very helpful during those days. However nowadays, do we even have those opportunities? No; and the people really suffer. In the earlier days, the people were healthier. However now, because of the issue of livelihood changes and what we eat, we do not control our things. We grow things on polluted rivers, even using sewage water. How do you then expect the people to be healthy? If the community health workers were functional and they were trained properly, all those things would not have happened. Now we know the way the rich people in West say; that, “you can get all the money you want, but when you become sick, what will money do for you?” You can buy everything with money, but money cannot buy you wealth. You will die! Mr. Speaker, Sir, I urge the counties – and not only the counties, but also the Ministry of Health, which has a lot of money – to assist the counties in training the community health workers. In most of the counties, they earn something like Kshs2,000. Others have support from some agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and whatever. However, the way the Government of Kenya throws money centre, left and right on issues which are not useful to this country. If they used that money properly to train and pay community health workers, this country will be a healthy nation. If we become healthy, then everything of ours will change for the better. I beg to support. 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."
}