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{
"id": 1567442,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567442/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kathuri",
"speaker_title": "The Deputy Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 13590,
"legal_name": "Murungi Kathuri",
"slug": "murungi-kathuri"
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"content": " Next is Sen. Oketch Eddy."
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{
"id": 1567443,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567443/?format=api",
"text_counter": 470,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. This is a hard Motion to contribute to because one life lost in the hands of caregivers, and in places of recourse in a country like Kenya today, is way too many. Therefore, allow me above everything I will say today, to, first of, all pass my deepest condolences to the family of Ms. Annita Jepkorir, who unfortunately died at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the hands of caregivers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I celebrate caregivers, doctors, nurses and clinicians, who work tirelessly to make sure that when we get sick and find our way to hospital, we come back home safe. What happened at the MTRH is unfortunate because there are caregivers who work tirelessly every single day to make sure that we are safe as Kenyans. They do this with zeal and zest despite the fact that our country does not give them the best compensation, support and care, to be able to get the same medical support that they give us. Doctors today in Kenya sometimes cannot even afford insurance to get the healthcare that the people that they give do get. So, in no way is this a small matter."
},
{
"id": 1567444,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567444/?format=api",
"text_counter": 471,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1567445,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567445/?format=api",
"text_counter": 472,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am drawn to the attention of this Petition by virtue of it not being a random Petition. It was sent to this House by one Ms. Mercy Jepchirchir, who reported to the Senate of Kenya on this issue on 10th July, 2024. That was last year. First, I want to thank her because without her, we would not have been able to know what happened to this promising soul of Ms. Annita, who unfortunately lost her life in the course of getting attention at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH). What is even wanting that I would like to talk about today, is how many people and cases are unreported. How many deaths could we be having in our different medical facilities that are not reported? I had the advantage of studying in the United States of America (USA). In the USA, every year, on average, about 600,000 cases of deaths are reported in hospitals. The USA is one of the countries that has made strides in medical advancement. However, at any given time, you will find that the third-largest cause of death in the USA is always medical errors. Those medical errors in a world-leading economy have become a public health problem. When this petition was brought to us, I wondered, if in the USA we can end up having this issue of medical errors in facilities of medical attention becoming a third- leading cause of death, what about in our borders where, if it were not for somebody like Ms. Mercy Cherono bringing this to the attention of the Senate? I will not belabour the point. I strongly believe that even though the recommendations here have called for compensation of Ms. Jepkorir’s family, the compensation cannot be enough for this family. Compensation cannot be enough to bring back this life that was very important and promising. However, more can be done in terms of ensuring that there is transparency and accountability in terms of being able to arrest the number of deaths that could be happening in our medical facilities without our watch and knowledge as lawmakers and as citizens of this country. That is why I wanted to spend a little bit of time on this. I hope that this Committee will hold the MTRH to account. I hope that they will not just be dealing with this one case that might easily pass as an isolated case after our debates have subsided and we have adopted this Report. The investigations that were done professionally here will have tried to hold MTRH to account. The question that we would be asking is: How can we make sure that we have a more comprehensive risk analysis of what is going on within our borders with regards to this kind of medical errors and gross negligence that happens in our medical institutions? I wish that this Report could have forced the institution in question, the MTRH, to further provide the different medical errors and medical negligence cases that might have occurred in the past and make sure that we, as a country, juxtapose this with the kind of impact it might have had in this hospital in terms of patient care. Whatever happened at the MTRH should be a case study for any other hospital in the country, not only referral hospitals and Level 6 hospitals, but even the lower cadre hospitals. They should be able to glean some morals, if there is any moral to glean in the first place. Secondly, what happened that got the attention of the Senate on this one case should be an issue that we must look at in terms of the loss we have in this country. We can get from this Report and figure out how we arrest reporting systems by clinical"
},
{
"id": 1567446,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567446/?format=api",
"text_counter": 473,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1567447,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567447/?format=api",
"text_counter": 474,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "providers on the medical errors in our hospitals. The senior, Sen. (Dr.) Boni Khalwale, who was once a very good doctor, will tell you that this idea of getting these reports involves a strategy that is informed by law. It is very important that we do not just have our sight in dealing with one institution and holding that one institution to account, but also hold ourselves to account as lawmakers. For the first time, we can put in place laws that are implementable in terms of putting up strategies that will ensure that when medical errors arise in hospitals, they are dealt with. This is a question where a medical error happens, then a misdiagnosis follows and then the handling of the patient continues. The patient then suffers subsequent errors until she meets her death. It means that there is a very serious substantive problem of recording and reporting of a medical error from the first instance to the last not only by the doctors in question, but also the clinical providers. That is something that we must examine as a House from this case study and ensure that we can put serious laws that will ensure that when a medical error occurs, it is properly recorded and addressed before subsequent handling of a patient. This should not only happen in MTRH, but across all our hospitals in the country. I am worried because this is an adverse event. The medics in the House will understand that there is always a difference between adverse events in terms of medical errors, sentinel events, active events as well as just latent errors that sometimes happen. The reason I bring this up is because if we do not put up proper laws that can arrest all these kinds of events that happen in our hospitals, some might not lead to death, but lead to patients getting into a serious problem in their lives. Sometimes those issues can go unattended in a hospital and then they develop complications later in life. This includes things like infections that can occur because of negligence and medical errors while handling a simple medical procedure. If all these are not captured, then we have a sick nation; a sick nation in that, if it is not an adverse event that can led to death, then any other complication does not matter. It should matter that when you leave a medical institution, you should have a better life than when you went there. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, my worry here is that if we do not have a proper legal framework that allows for reporting then if there is no situation whereby somebody has died, any other complication will not matter. It is important that this recommendation from the Committee on Health informs our action as policymakers, to ensure that we arrest other forms of medical errors that could lead to other complications that are not only death scenarios. This also calls on us as policymakers, legislatures and Government to rethink the kind of collaborative platform that we try to put for inter-professional teams in our entire medicare. This is where I passionately come again on this Floor to talk about the issue of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) workers. Sometimes, it is very easy for political leaders to just make reckless statements that we do not have money to take care of UHC workers, mainstream them into permanent and pensionable contracts or put them into the payroll of counties and follow that with money."
},
{
"id": 1567448,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567448/?format=api",
"text_counter": 475,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1567449,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567449/?format=api",
"text_counter": 476,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Saying that is very simple, but have we ever taken just a pause to think about any level of hospital in our communities whether a dispensary or a Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3. After any kind of medical procedure, who ends up handling your clinical waste? What is the life of that person who ends up picking the clinical waste from the point where the waste is given to the last point where it is disposed? Where is that waste disposed? Think about the ecosystem of clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, specialists, simple laboratory technicians and anybody who is handling any kind of medical issues in the hospital. If we do not think about this as an entire ecosystem that needs collaboration among all people who are inter-professionals in this docket, then medical errors are bound to happen in any way that leaves our sick nation worse off than when people get to hospital. I wish we can listen as a country. When our doctors say that they do not have proper payment, we must listen to them. When our UHC workers say that they do not have enough compensation to make them work in these medical institutions, we must listen and support them. It is lack of commensurate investment in these inter-professional teams that sometimes leads to some of these errors that are very costly, that lead us to a number of deaths that are never reported. If there was no one to bring this Petition to the Senate, perhaps we could have never heard about Ms. Annita's demise in our borders. I encourage us, as a people, and mostly the National Assembly teams that usually have got control over allocating money to different institutions, including in the healthcare system, that for once, listen to the entire ecosystem. Do not just think that when you solve the issue of doctors or nurses, then the issue of medical provision and all others are solved. This is an entire ecosystem. Every single person who works in our hospitals, from the sweeper, the person who feeds us, the person who handles clinical waste, the person who brings medicine, to the pharmacist, all these inter-professional teams are important. We must invest in them and make sure that there is no chance for error in a place where people go to get recourse to get better health care. I hope that other institutions will be able to glean some lessons from what happened here, and if possible, we all work together to avoid such kinds of losses in the lives of our people. Most importantly, we must hold MTRH properly to account. I support."
},
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"id": 1567450,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567450/?format=api",
"text_counter": 477,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Munyi Mundigi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Asante Bwana Naibu Spika kwa kunipa ruhusa nichangie mjadala unaoendelea kulingana na uchunguzi uliofanywa na Kamati ya Afya kuhusu mtoto aliyefariki katika MTRH. Tumesikia mambo mengi hapa Kenya katika mfumo wa hii serikali ya Kenya Kwanza. Tumekuwa tukipigania wizara zote na hasa Wizara ya Afya iwe ikipata pesa nyingi kuliko wizara zingine zote. Huu ni wakati katika ulimwengu ambapo masuala ya afya yanaangaliwa. Serikali ya Kenya Kwanza imekuwa ikirekebisha mambo mengi iwe kwamba Social Health Authority (SHA) itakuwa ikifanya kazi usiku na mchana ili kila mtu akae maisha yanayofaa. Katika nchi za ng’ambo, mambo ya afya huangaliwa kupita mengine yote tangu kuzaliwa mpaka uzeeni na hata kufariki. Sote, hata mimi nikianguka hapa saa hii ni"
},
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"id": 1567451,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567451/?format=api",
"text_counter": 478,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Munyi Mundigi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}
]
}