HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 944447,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/944447/?format=api",
"text_counter": 419,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Nyamunga",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 738,
"legal_name": "Rose Nyamunga Ogendo",
"slug": "rose-nyamunga-ogendo"
},
"content": "Kenya population grows by more than 3,200 every day but that does not match the rate at which the doctors are being trained in this nation. When the specialists and general practitioner doctors are combined, the national ratio for doctors is 1.5:10,000 patients. In health financing, Kenya is ranked 140 out of 190 according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) system. That is the difference between us and the leading countries in health financing. This has greatly affected other components of our healthcare. According to the WHO, as at August, 2014 Human Resource for Health Staffing Norms and Standards by the Ministry of Health, we had only 12,000 health workers per year for four years. The Government has since employed only 15,000 health workers. According to our statistics, the Government should be employing 12,000 health workers per year. However, for the last four years, it has employed only 15,000. According to the guidelines, we are supposed to have 16,278 clinical officers, 13,141 doctors and 38,315 nurses in our healthcare. According to our employment statistics we have only 6,000 clinical officers, 5,000 doctors and 25,000 nurses. We can see that the comparison does not add up. There is a big shortfall in that we need 13,000 doctors, but have only 5,000 doctors. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the ideal minimum health workers to population ratio should be 23 health workers to 10,000 Kenyans or 40 clinical officers to 100,000; 32 doctors to 100,000 Kenyans. We should have at least 95 nurses per every 100,000 Kenyans. These figures are very discouraging knowing and taking into account the fact that the President had pronounced himself to healthcare being one the Big Four Agenda. We know very well that Universal Health Care (UHC) or affordable healthcare has been launched in five counties; Kisumu County being one of them. However, from the statistics that we have on the ground, we know that the four counties which had UHC rolled out are not doing very well. I can only talk of my county which I am very familiar with. I know that if you go to the village and talk to any person about UHC most people just heard about it. People went for the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) cards and that was the end of it. When you go to the hospitals right now, you will find that we have a big crisis and more so in a county such as Kisumu. For the last three months we have not had doctors and the hospitals are not functioning. Even if the doctors were there, we do not have enough medicine in our hospitals. This is not just the case in Kisumu - if you take a sweep across the country, we know what happened in Kirinyaga and what is happening in Homa Bay - you can count all the counties with difficulties in issues of medical services. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is important that as a nation we come to terms with reality and look at the situation the way it is. The people who are working at the village level are the community health workers. When I was a young girl growing up, I knew the name and meaning of a community health worker in my vernacular. Those are the women and men who are volunteers. They volunteer their time and are not paid any money. Most of them do not have a medical background and they are not paid for the services they give, but if you fall sick at any time of day or night, the first person that you will look for is the community health worker. Before, they were called community health 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."
}