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Today, Lillian and I are extremely happy to at last open the Machakos
Cancer Care and Research Centre, which is the first of its kind by a
County Government in Kenya.
We want to ensure that cancer treatment is for all of us not just a few.
I wish to commend our Machakos First Lady Lillian who has been to
basically every corner of Machakos County in the last six years, running
cancer screening sessions. However, after all these sessions, she would
come home slightly sad. Sad not just because the sessions identified
people with cancer but because that was just it - identification.
Today she is very happy because we can do more than just find out
whether one has cancer - we can treat and manage the disease and also
do it for free for thousands of our people who will no longer have to choose
between food and cancer medicines.
Let me reveal that last night she found it hard to sleep due to the
excitement of today’s launch. Now, the people she loves so much can be
given a new lease of life. We can do more than screen, pray and wish them
well. We can now treat and manage the disease.
It is quiet heartbreaking when you know people die just because they are
poor and lack affordable health care.
For example, one evening, Lillian and I were touring Machakos Level 5’s
emergency area. We found a woman with an enlarged and darkened breast
area. She had thought it was just an injury or muscle swelling problem.
She got referred to Kenyatta Hospital where it was established she had
cancer but had been too poor and too removed from medical care to be
diagnosed and treated. She died two weeks later.
This Machakos Cancer Centre is for women like her and many other
patients who can start treatment at stage one and live for many many
years.
This Machakos Cancer Care and Research Centre has been set-up with
equipment purchased by my Government. Lillian has also sourced
equipment from friends and well wishers including from Dr. Ng’ang’a of
the Kenya Cancer Association.
This Centre can undertake the highest quality of diagnosis and provide
chemotherapy treatment.
Next year, we will include the purchase of a 300 million Kenya shillings
radiotherapy machine in our budget. Our strategy is to have several
diagnostic and treatment centers spread all over Machakos County within
the next three years.
For our research component, we welcome partnerships for drug trials and
new ways of management of cancer. If you have an idea, however crazy,
come to us and we will listen and evaluate. The key is to find ways of
helping our people.
Healthcare has been one of my top priorities. More than a third (32.5%)
of our Machakos Government’s current budget is allocated to health care.
I am proud of the fact that Machakos has the most comprehensive health
care system in Kenya which I also believe is the best. Since I became
Governor in 2013, there is no sharing of hospital beds in Machakos County
and no one ever sleeps on the floor. Our health facilities have been
renovated and expanded and quality standards set up. Even our mothers
at this hospital shower with hot water.
Our 80 ambulances, found in every administrative location, have saved
lives. In Machakos County, you are assured of an ambulance to provide
you or your loved one first aid even as you are taken to a health facility,
day or night.
Our hospitals have been ranked the cleanest and most organized
government health facilities in Kenya and we have medicines and other
supplies available. We have increased the number of health workers and
are still hiring more. It is all about providing quality and available health
care.
His plans for universal health care should be lauded by all. Mr. President,
I know there are many discussions on how to fund universal health care
and whether it is possible to provide international quality health care from
the home to high tech hospitals.
I am aware it has been made to look complex and there are many interests.
However, I remember how President Mwai Kibaki announced one day that
there would be Free Primary education and a few days later it was
somehow affordable.
President Uhuru, I will work with you to ensure that we provide every
Kenyan, regardless of where they were born, access to free and quality
healthcare. As we say in Maendeleo Chap Chap, Inawezekana na
Itawezekana.
God bless you, God bless Machakos and God bless Kenya.