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Nyongo is back, with a healthcare pledge

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 7 – Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong\’o is back in the country after undergoing treatment in the United States for prostate cancer and has vowed to ensure the government establishes proper legislation that will give Kenyans affordable quality healthcare.

Professor Nyong\’o said diseases like the one he is suffering from are very expensive to treat and can only be managed easily by those who can afford proper healthcare through insurance schemes, which are however a preserve of a few in the society.

"I am lucky I had insurance that is why I am able to get the best treatment.  What of those without insurance even from the National Hospital Insurance Fund?" he posed.

"It is the responsibility of the government to ensure all Kenyans can access quality healthcare, and that is what we must do in line with Vision 2030," he said on Sunday upon arrival from the United States.

Professor Nyong\’o said he would now use his position in the government to ensure proper laws are established to have all Kenyans access proper medical care all over the country regardless of their status in the society.

Read more on his efforts in this blog.

"Everyone can fall victim of any kind of sickness.  Sickness does not choose at all. Complications like cancer equally do not choose, therefore we have to be prepared by having access to proper medical care at all times," the minister said.

Prof Nyong\’o who arrived in the company of his wife was received by ministry officials led by Acting Medical Services Minister Dalmas Otieno.

Prof Nyong\’o has been receiving treatment at the University of California, San Francisco Cancer Centre in the US for the past three months.

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He said he had responded well to treatment and was ready to carry on his duties at the Ministry and at the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) where he is the Secretary General.

Addressing some of the well-wishers who had turned up to receive him at the airport, Prof Nyong\’o warned ODM rebels who have been wrangling that he will not spare them now that he is back.

"Everyone should know that I am now back… those rebels who have been castigating our party leader will see fire," he said without elaborating.

"ODM is a party for the future and it is set to form the next government, we cannot afford to let anyone destroy it," he said.

Lately, there has been persistent wrangling in ODM following a fall out between party leader Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his onetime closest ally suspended Higher Education Minister William Ruto.

Mr Ruto has openly defied his party boss and vowed to lead a mass walk out from the party that sponsored him and other MPs to Parliament in 2007.

On Sunday afternoon, Mr Ruto told a gathering in Nairobi that he was ready to lead the walk out "if they will continue pushing us."

"We are not afraid of facing the electorate.  We are very much prepared and we don\’t want anybody to continue threatening us using techniques of the last century," Mr Ruto said when he presided over a fundraiser at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi.

The sentiments came days after the ODM unsuccessfully attempted to expel its two members – Isaac Ruto of Chepalungu and Adan Duale of Dujis.

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