Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Secretary General Dr Davji Atellah has pledged to prioritise healthcare and education in Lang’ata Constituency if elected MP in the 2027 General Election.
Atellah, who announced his bid for the Lang’ata parliamentary seat in September, said health was the foundation of any development.
He also argued that residents must be involved in identifying and determining the priorities that should guide constituency development programmes.
Speaking during a meeting with constituents, the union boss said development initiatives, including projects funded through the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF), could fail to achieve their objectives if residents were excluded from decision-making.
“You could have a good government, you can have good plans for the NG-CDF, but if you do not get the people to be involved in the plans, it may not achieve the desired goals,” Atellah said.
“That is why I am emphasising a people-driven agenda. We must give the people of Lang’ata the chance to decide; they must pick their priorities,” he added.
Atellah said he would seek to strengthen the role of Community Health Promoters (CHPs) in identifying vulnerable households and connecting residents to essential health and social support services.
He argued that CHPs, who regularly interact with residents during household visits, were better placed to identify families struggling to access healthcare, pay school fees and meet other basic needs.
“When we talk about CHPs, Community Health Promoters, in those discussions, do they have their representative? When we move from house to house, they are the people who know that in this constituency, there are a certain number who need this or that,” he said.
Atellah pledged to use the community health network to help ensure that eligible residents who qualify for government support to pay their Social Health Authority (SHA) contributions are not left behind.
“I will use CHP to ensure that nobody in Lang’ata who is supposed to have SHA paid for them is left out,” he said.
The KMPDU secretary general also linked healthcare to education and household welfare, saying financial hardship could affect residents’ psychological well-being and prevent children from accessing learning opportunities.
He pledged to support families unable to pay school fees through a combination of fairly distributed bursaries and assistance from the Davji Atellah Foundation.
“We will ensure no parent without fees has their children stay at home. It will be in two ways: bursaries, which will be fairly given, and I also have the Davji Atellah Foundation, which will chip in,” he added.
Atellah said his commitment to education was informed by his personal experience growing up in Nairobi, where his mother sold fish to support the family and he relied partly on assistance from well-wishers to pursue his education.
“My dream is to make sure that other women are also able to see their children get education,” he added.
