Prof. Sam Ongeri

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 901 to 910 of 1925.

• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: a big discount when we use this mass procurement. This discount must be passed on to the county governments. That was the essence of creating KEMSA. view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: The other essence of creating KEMSA is that there is a plethora of drugs being peddled by peddlers all over the place, with a very sweet language of trying to carry out and tell you that the drug is efficacious or suitable for a particular condition of illness or disease. Kenyans have fallen victim of these quacks who go around bringing these types of drugs to the market, telling them that drugs can cure a particular disease here and there. What is the net effect of that exercise? view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: They have now developed resistance to particular bacterial infections. Therefore, treating chronic illnesses that have developed resistance to basic drugs that are useful and essential in the market has now become a major problem. That is why you are having so much of this chronicity of illnesses within the society and people do not get better sooner or later. That is one of the problems. Getting KEMSA to be in charge of procurement of drugs and medical equipment was to assess the efficacy and the molecule which would drive, at the minimum dose, to treat a particular disease and cure ... view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: If you do timely immunization, take care of nutritional requirements of growing children in the society and the environment under which people are staying that is what I call public health; which is preventative and promotive healthcare. That should be the major functions, where major resources must be spent by county governments. This would reduce the disease burden by more 50 per cent. This means that you will also reduce the bed occupancy in hospitals, because bed occupancy is curative medicine. When you have more people in the hospitals, you incur more costs and expenses than is required. I, therefore, ... view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, sometimes in developed economies, drugs may run their course and expire. There is rewiring or rewinding, and there are certain pharmaceutical industries that can rewind those drugs. We have also become victims of intellectual property drugs. They are 10 times more expensive than the generic drugs. Generic does not mean that they do not have potency, efficacy or are not good quality drugs. view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I feel that I want to enrich this debate when my time is almost up. Please add me some minutes. This is such an important topic that I think we are richer in this debate than just glossing over it. view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: You can rewind those drugs and get a life out of them to make them important, critical and efficacious. For example, when I was the Minister for Health, we had the HIV epidemic at a prevalence rate of 14 per cent. The patented drugs were out of this world in terms of cost. It costed USD1,000 to treat a patient and nobody could afford them. I, therefore, looked at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) treaties and agreements, and in particular the agreement which said that if you have an emergency in a country, you can declare it as such; then ... view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if we allow county governments to partner with the national Government, it must then be precedent upon this that the county governments should have a bigger say through this Bill. If need be, further amendments should be done so that they have a bigger say because they are greatest consumer. I say so because I know that the national Government though the Ministry of Health today is only in charge of policy, infectious diseases, pandemics, control of infectious diseases and also control of the referral hospitals. These include the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), the Moi Teaching ... view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: The next step that we must take, as the Senate, is to ensure that the national Government gives the bulk of resources to county governments to take care of health facilities. That is the way we should go. I have no quarrel with these amendments that when we tied up, the two members who are going to KEMSA should be able to take care of these arrangements. Finally, when this is agreed upon, this Bill should be scrutinized further to ensure that all those arraignments, particularly the human--- view
• 2 Jul 2019 in Senate: Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I know that one of the most pernicious headache is human resources in county governments. Human resource in county governments is becoming a problem and the county governments do not know how to handle it. Some have gone for the easy way – applying carte blanche dismissal. That does not solve the labour relations problems. These are specialised people whom you must give a hearing. You must listen to their wants and problems and try and accommodate them. As we expand the Level 5 institutions in county governments, we must bear in mind that ... view