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{
    "id": 944449,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/944449/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 421,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Nyamunga",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 738,
        "legal_name": "Rose Nyamunga Ogendo",
        "slug": "rose-nyamunga-ogendo"
    },
    "content": "It is very clear that we do not have the statistics for the community health workers. The figures are very many, but a county like Kisumu has approximately 3,000 community healthy workers. These people move from village to village and home to home. When I was serving in the last Parliament, I had a connection with a hospital from Maryland. They wanted to train community health workers. Apart from training, they are also supposed to have equipment. As at now, they rely on guess work. They will look at a child, maybe hold the hand or chest and say that maybe the child is suffering from malaria. Sometimes, it is not malaria. Most of the time, they use guesswork, but they succeed to a large extent. However, as diseases become more complicated, it becomes more difficult for them. They may be able to guess today, but what happens in future when diseases become very complicated? They will be treating the wrong things. This institution in Maryland wanted to at least give the basic equipment to the health workers. They were also supposed to train them and also facilitate their transportation. This is because the villages are grouped into families. Maybe one health worker takes care of 100 families and has to walk from home to home; whether it is raining or not; whether they have their own businesses to take care or not. They do it for free. It is very important that, as a nation, we work. The good thing about training these people is that we have systems that consist of some technology that can be put in place. The hospital in Maryland wanted to connect health centers and the community health workers around. They also wanted to give equipment to these health workers which would help them to take all the details. For example, if my child is sick and they come to my home, they will take all the details and advice me to take the child to the health center. By the time I get to the health center, all the details will be there. At the health center, the details can be taken again, but they will have had the primary data of the child. From there, there would be a follow up on this simple gadget which I believe county governments can afford. I believe this system can be implemented in all the counties so that we have a track record. There are so many mothers who do not go for maternity care when they are pregnant. Most of them are still delivering at home. The first lady has done a lot on issues of maternity and reducing the child mortality rate, but that is not enough. What she did was good, but it was not good enough. This is because the country is big and we are dealing with over 50 million Kenyans. In my view, the county governments should be more serious and should find a better way of giving health care to our people. The most important thing is to know these community health workers by number, train them and at least facilitate them with some transportation fee. I know that there are some counties which have started giving motorbikes to their community health workers; they could be two or three counties out of the 47. There are counties which are already giving some small stipend to their community health workers. But how many are they? They could be four or five. The 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."
}