Robert Monda

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 221 to 230 of 504.

• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to observe that this country is ill prepared to handle cancer as a disease. Kenya has neither a national cancer policy nor cancer control law. Cancer as it stands now kills up to 18,000 people every year, when we consider the conservative figure. When we say 18,000 people dying of cancer related complication in a year, we are talking of 50 people dying every day on average. view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is an equivalent of the Sinai fire disaster in two days, or the Sachangwan accident for two days; we shall have 100 people dying from cancer everyday. Cancer has been of concern and has been on the rise; you can look at the figures and statistics as given by the experts and from our hospitals. However, it is clear that despite the fact that this disease has hit the population so hard, and has made many Kenyans live devastating lives, I want to state that the country is very poor in the diagnosis of ... view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we do not have effective screening processes being carried out in our health facilities. It is important to know that it is only Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) that is equipped to deal with, or handle, cancer in this country. The Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) is not fully equipped to do a similar job. The Government has no clear picture of the real magnitude of the cancer problem in the country and the figure of 18,000 is from the Nairobi Cancer Registry. The country, therefore, has no other registry for cancer to give the ... view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, this figure of 18,000 is one that is given by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), and is only for Nairobi. The other parts of the country do not have a cancer registry. As I have already indicated, there is only one public hospital providing treatment by way of the procedure of radiotherapy; this is the KNH. The country, through the KNH, does radiotherapy; this process uses radiation to treat cancer. The KNH handles only 3,850 patients, yet the country every year has 120 confirmed cases that go for treatment all the time; 150 cases are ... view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is important for the House to note that cancer patients suffer because they are all referred to one hospital for radiotherapy. Therefore, there is a big queue of patients who wait to undergo radiotherapy and radiation treatment, yet the disease does not allow patients to follow the queue and access treatment in good time, or before the disease takes a toll on them. view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to indicate here that the same KNH has only three machines, which are called Cobalt 60 machines, to provide the 41 million Kenyans in treatment through radiation. This is an indication of how ill-prepared the country is to treat cancer through this means. view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in terms of personnel, the country has only four radiation oncologists, six medical oncologists, four paedriatic oncologists and no trained surgical oncologist to handle the 41 million Kenyans in terms of screening, diagnosis and treatment, whether it is through chemotherapy, radiation or surgical catheterization. When you look at these numbers of experts in the discipline of cancer intervention; when you look at these numbers of experts in the area of cancer you realize that we are quite poorly prepared to handle it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the picture is worse when you look at ... view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is, therefore, important that the Government makes deliberate effort to allocate resources so that the country is able to acquire medicines for patients who suffer from cancer. It is also important that the cost of medicines is looked at by the Government so that it is affordable to the poor Kenyans who suffer from the disease. view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: It should be noted that this country has no cancer research institution to offer help in screening the population that suffer from cancer. At this point, I want to indicate that there are many types of cancer. Therefore, unless we have experts who are capable of screening and diagnosing cancer and then we move to treatment, it will not be possible for cancer to be detected early and treatment instituted in good time before the cancer takes toll on the patient. In our Bill we have recommended that the country starts the Cancer Prevention and Control Institute. In this institute ... view
• 23 Nov 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, allow me to observe that in Kenya the number of our mothers, wives, children and sisters who suffer from breast cancer is big. Cancer of the cervix for mothers, again, is another area we need to address as a country. We have cancer that affects children and cancer that affects men. This is not an area that we should wish away. I want to indicate that the few trained medical personnel, be they pathologists, radiologists, oncologists, radiotherapist, nurses, counsellors, nutritionists or palliative care specialists do not provide an environment for research support. Cancer is not ... view