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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | ||||
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| REMARKS BY: | TOMMY G. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES |
| PLACE: | The Afghanistan-America Summit, On Recovery and Reconstruction, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. |
| DATE: | July 25, 2002 |
And thank you to Georgetown President DeGioia for hosting this important meeting.
Thank you all for coming here today. I especially want to thank the many Afghan Ministers and staff who came over this week to continue our dialogue on reconstruction. We so appreciate your courage … your dedication to your people ... and your steadfast commitment to a principle we cherish together with you - "liberty and justice for all."
It is such an honor for me to be here with these distinguished Afghan patriots. You have kept the hope of democracy alive - throughout great trial and turmoil in your country. You have seen the worst of human evil firsthand. You are beginning to grow after the destruction of war and the hopelessness of oppression into a new nation, one that's full of hope and optimism.
This is going to be a long road. The Taliban dictators were very able destroyers. But working together, Afghanistan will recover and be renewed.
I want to particularly thank you, Minister Siddiq, for coming and for all of your hard work to improve the health and lives of the Afghan people. It's good to see you again.
From my own department, the Department of Health and Human Services, we have sent personnel to help with polio eradication, public health training, and to assist with relief efforts related to tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV control in refugee camps.
We have sent money to assist in destroying landmines, buy polio and measles vaccine, and set up a disease surveillance center in Kabul.
And one of the things that I am most proud of is our effort, made in partnership with UNICEF, to vaccinate over 5 million children against measles since January. Together, we've helped in saving 40,000 children from almost certain death.
We've taken an active role in maternal and child health, in improving nutrition, and providing war-related injury assessments.
But our work is not yet done. A few months ago I asked people in each agency in the Department to look at how they could help in Afghanistan in collaboration with multi-lateral agencies and USAID.
Based on that review, today I am pleased to announce the next phase of HHS's commitment to the people of Afghanistan. We will continue to work with you as you build up your medical infrastructure and as you create a sustainable democracy and fruitful economic system.
Today, we understand that you still need the basics. The discussions over the past two days here in Georgetown, and our own HHS needs assessments have indicated that after decades of war, famine, and drought, there is an urgent need for essential health care and a social service delivery system. Based on this information, HHS is committing a total of $3.4 million in supplies and services this year.
We will focus on five areas of great need. They include:
First, we will work with you to improve maternal, infant, and child health. By investing nearly a quarter of a million dollars this year, we will join you as we begin to address the lack of primary care for this, most vulnerable population. Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world. But by providing care we can begin to bring hope to families across the country.
We will provide expert advice and counsel on how to draw, test, keep, transport, and dispense blood safely. We will provide Afghan pharmacy specialists with instruction about the development of safe drug distribution. And we will train Afghan scientists in diagnostic microbiology for laboratory practitioners.
We will help with the dispensing of medicines, and lead in diagnostic microbiology in laboratories, and we will focus on training new nurses. Nurses are the backbone of any society's health care infrastructure. With good nurses, the people of Afghanistan can begin to build an effective and patient-centered health care system.
Third, we will invest $300,000 in in-kind services to train Afghan leaders as they begin to build clean water and basic sanitation systems. Our Indian Health Service has extensive experience working with tribal communities here in the U.S. building a clean and safe water supply. We will use that expertise and gain further knowledge by helping the people of Afghanistan prepare a potable water supply.
The situation is dire, as only 23 percent of the Afghan population has access to safe water, and nearly one out of every four children dies before reaching the age of five, many because of water and sanitation problems.
Fourth, by the end of this year we will have spent $2.2 million to address the incredible need for immunizations, disease surveillance, land mine abatement, and injury prevention. As I said earlier, we, and our international partners, have already saved 40,000 children from death with measles vaccinations. Now we will continue that work and expand it as we branch out to further reaches of the country.
And finally, HHS will provide funding to send two representatives from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to participate in a mental health training conference in Sarajevo. Mental health is often overlooked when there are so many other needs in an area. In a nation as traumatized by war and oppression as Afghanistan has been, there are serious mental health needs that demand careful and caring attention.
Yet, of all of these efforts, our lasting impact won't be in dollars. It will be in deeds. HHS employs some of the greatest medical and scientific experts in the world. We have the best of the best at HHS.
I've asked some of these experts to take time to train Afghan doctors and nurses and civilians in ways to treat injuries and illnesses. By training Afghanis, we can make a permanent difference.
As part of this mentoring initiative, HHS scientists will work with Afghan doctors, nurses, and scientists in a wide array of medical areas. They will include blood services and safety experts, pharmacological scientists, nursing and allied health professionals, and mental health experts to train Afghan health care providers in the latest and most effective health care techniques. Then, those Afghan doctors can train their peers in their homeland, ever-strengthening the health care delivery system in Afghanistan.
And I'm not going to just sit by and hope that everything goes well. Minister Siddiq - I'm coming over. I am planning to make a trip to Afghanistan in the fall. We've got some scheduling issues to resolve, but I am going to be personally involved in making sure that you have the health resources and training that you need.
I'm going to check up on the HHS people that I've sent, and I'm going to look and see what good the money we've sent is doing.
I have the greatest confidence in you as Minister of Public Health- and I want to assure you that this support isn't just for today. Our support is for the long term.
Minister Siddiq, I want you to be assured that we are just a phone call away. President Bush has committed to President Karzai that the U.S. government will support you as you grow to self-suffiency. It will not be an easy road- our founders discovered that creating a new nation and a new democracy is very challenging.
But as a nation born from a political experiment based on the fundamental dream of freedom more than 226 years ago, and in the shadow of our own nation's civil war 140 years ago, we were able to grow bigger and stronger.
As President Lincoln reminded us at the close of our own Civil War, the American people had to, in his words, "bind up our nation's wounds." We did that in our country after the loss of 620,000 lives in a brutal civil conflict.
We Americans have confidence that the people of Afghanistan will do the same. We trust that you too will experience the promise of your new dawn. And we will be with you all the way.
Ministers, I can tell you that America wants to rid the world of evil men like those in al Qaeda, and the American people will do whatever is within our power to make the world free of terror. But the American people are also a compassionate people. I am so very proud to be a citizen of the most compassionate nation on earth. And as compassionate people we want to help our friends.
Afghanistan is and will remain America's friend. And we do not fail our friends.
Thank you for coming to Washington today. And thank you for all of your hard and noble work on behalf of the Afghan people.