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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: | 9/11: Honoring Those Who Perished and Those Who Served, Great Hall, Washington, D.C. |
| DATE: | September 9, 2002 |
Thank you, Claude. And thank you for the important work you did a year ago in coordinating HHS with other agencies across government.
This is a day of remembrance … and a day to recognize the important and heroic work performed by so many HHS employees.
Starting here on the dais:
We all remember the terrible events that took place a year ago this week. We remember those who died, and those who lost family members. We at HHS lost two members of our "extended family:"
This Wednesday, at 8:46 a.m., we will join the nation in a moment of silence for all those who perished. We at HHS especially remember these two.
It's important to remember what was lost. It's important to remember that we are confronted, still, by threats and danger.
But it's equally important to remember the courage, the professionalism, and the generosity of our response.
The events of a year ago help us remember what people are capable of - the bad, yes - but more important, the good.
There are many among us, in the HHS family, who were among the heroes on 9-11, and in the months that followed.
And when I say "the HHS family," I mean all 63,000 of us. Because behind every visible hero are all those who carry out the daily tasks and make the heroism possible. I also mean our "extended family" … the volunteer health professionals in the National Disaster Medical System … our partners in the states and cities .. and the national associations we work with.
This is HHS -- a VERY big family -- even by Irish standards.
Much of what we do is not visible in the everyday headlines. But on Sept 11, and the weeks that followed, we were on duty, front and center. We performed individually, and we performed as a team.
No one needs to be reminded of the details of 9-11. The flight numbers tell the story. Our words will hardly suffice. Yet there are so many individual stories of caring, and compassion, and professionalism, that do need to be remembered:
In our New York Regional Office, the collisions were visible, and the impact was felt in the building. Commander Thomas Mignone, our emergency coordinator for Region II, was actually attending a terrorism preparedness meeting far from the city, and when all flights were grounded, he managed to return by way of two Navy aircraft and a commercial bus. New York's new Emergency Operations Center in the World Trade Center had been destroyed, and Commander Mignone helped create a new EOC from scratch.
Over the next weeks, emergency coordinators from all ten HHS regional offices were dispatched to New York to help the city.
The New York regional office itself had to be relocated temporarily, and the FDA made space available in Queens. Dr. Gilberto Cardona, the regional health administrator, led the regional response team and provided a full range of support services for New York. Meanwhile, telephones were crippled, and the regional staff, under executive officer Anthony Marra, worked fast and hard to maintain communications and keep operations running.
At the time of the attack, many HHS regional staff responded instantly. Two nurses evacuated from the office went directly to Bellevue Hospital Center to give volunteer care. Dr. Steve Auerbach from the HRSA regional office provided medical services at Chelsea Pier. Dr. Nilsa Gutierrez of CMS found a first aid station and provided care. Sandra Esteppa, a social worker in the Office of Women's Health, volunteered with the city to provide counseling. And Dr. Joe Miranda of HRSA volunteered his help with the needy clients of a local homeless shelter.
Others pitched in, too: three NIH employees, who were at a meeting in New York at the time of the attack, set up a first aid center to provide help to the rush of people escaping Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge. And Alice Rosenberg, a nurse case manager at the NIH Clinical Center, learned that her daughter at New York University was helping provide food for the rescue workers - so she got in her car, headed north, and joined in the kitchen. As she put it: "Food I can do!"
All our agencies did their part: CMS assured that Medicare payments were not interrupted. SAMHSA moved to address mental health concerns. ACF supported special outreach to children. And AoA assured that services for homebound elderly continued.
In Washington, within minutes of the attack, we had declared a national health emergency. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of the United States' seven uniformed services, was ready to respond. Many Americans may not even know that HHS includes a uniformed corps of health care professionals. These men and women are assigned to work in health settings throughout the government - in HHS agencies, on Indian reservations, even in federal prisons. But when they're needed in an emergency, they are "on call" - especially the members of the Commisioned Corps Readiness Force. Under the Surgeon General at that time, David Satcher, and the Deputy Surgeon General, Ken Moritsugu, the Commissioned Corps responded valiantly.
The individual stories from the Corps are far too many to name. In addition to those who organized the response, like Captain Bryan Jones in Region III - and those who led response teams, like Captain Kathleen Downs - there were a thousand other jobs to be done.
One Commissioned Corps officer, who had been assigned to CDC to work in New York, was Commander Susan Blank. Even as the attacks were occurring, she helped organize a medical response. She was in the New York City Health Department a few blocks away when the first Tower collapsed, and she writes the following:
"I heard some very loud noises and felt the building shake. I thought there was an on-going attack. At that point I was still calm and focused, and I realized that today was the last day I'd live. I thanked the Lord for a good life and prayed that my husband and son would be taken care of. … I ran back downstairs to the triage center and saw a sea of people running, along with flying debris and smoke. That's when the casualties, caked in dust and debris, began to come in."
That evening, Commander Blank was reunited with her husband and their one-year-old son - and the next day, she went back to work.
As the needs became clear, our National Disaster Medical System made the largest response in its history, with the leadership of Bob Knouss and Gary Moore. Our volunteer "DMATs" - Disaster Medical Assistance Teams - came to New York from around the country.
The very names of their teams tell the story - Rhode Island #1 … Massachusetts # 1 and 2 … New Jersey # 1 and New York # 2 … Florida # 1, 2 and 5 … North Carolina, Kentucky and Georgia … Michigan and Ohio … Arkansas and Alabama … Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas … California DMATs # 1, 2, 4, 6 and 9 … Alaska # 1 … Hawaii # 1.
Commander Michelle Hall of the Alaska DMAT writes:
"They couldn't believe we came all the way from Alaska to help them. I am forever changed. It was a privilege to be there."
And Dr. Nat Cobb, arriving among the first DMATs, wrote:
"The smoke is acrid, full of plastic and formaldehyde. The noise is constant - you have to shout to be heard across the DMAT tent. At the edge of the pile, where you can see detail, there is nothing identifiable - not a chair, not a desk, not a computer, not a body."
Our veterinary teams also came, to care for the rescue dogs. But in the end, sadly, the longest-term need was for our disaster mortuary and forensic expertise. All ten of our DMORTS were dispatched to New York, working from September until about three months ago. Tom Shepherdson, the National Commander of the DMORT system, led this important work. By the time his teams left New York in June, they had helped the New York Medical Examiner's Office with identification of over 19,000 remains.
Commander Donald Belcher, wrote that "Our mission in the DMORTS was to ultimately serve the families of victims." And indeed, many families expressed their gratitude at receiving positive identification … and with it, closure.
Of course, it was in the middle of this horror that our Nation underwent our first mass bioterror attack.
The CDC had been present in New York from Day One, when a 50-ton emergency "Push Pack" of drugs and medical supplies arrived, under the direction of Steve Adams, from the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile. Ron Burger, CDC emergency response coordinator, had left Atlanta in the first hours and stayed in New York for over a month. NIOSH was also there, doing all they could to help protect rescue workers from the dangers of the site.
From mid-September onward, CDC remained on the scene to detect possible disaster-related disease, and to be on the look-out for possible bioterrorism. On September 11, CDC had issued a national health alert: With America under attack, be on the alert for unusual disease symptoms and possible bioterrorism.
As we all know, the attack began in Florida … eventually it affected national media in New York, and the U.S. Congress … leaving its deadliest residue here in the Brentwood postal facility.
This was clearly the greatest challenge of CDC's history … and one of the greatest public health challenges America has ever faced. CDC went on full alert - in the end, more than 2,000 CDC employees were directly engaged in this response. Former CDC director Jeff Koplan guided his agency through this crisis, along with Dr. Gerberding, Dr. David Fleming, and the rest of CDC's outstanding leadership.
Under Brad Perkins and Tonja Popovic, CDC had developed a depth of knowledge about anthrax. With many others on their team, working around the clock, anthrax was quickly identified … and false alarms were debunked. One lab worker, Chung Marston, has already been recognized by the President for her outstanding work. A few others responding to the anthrax challenge were David Ashford, Dan Jernigan, Sherif Zaki … too many to name everyone, but everyone played a part. More than 125,000 specimens were tested. Here in Washington, we enlisted the help and leadership of outstanding experts -- D.A. Henderson, Phil Russell, Mike Ascher
When antibiotics were needed, Steve Bice of CDC worked with the Commissioned Corps and the state and local health authorities to provide treatments for more than 30,000 who had possible exposure. As you know, we moved rapidly to acquire hundreds of millions of doses of Cipro and other antibiotics for our stockpile. What you may not know is that Cipro was on-hand, proven and ready to be used, because of work that had already been done in previous months and years by the FDA.
And even as these events were unfolding, we were reaffirmed in the importance of basic research in bioterror diseases, and the need for new and better vaccines, diagnostics and therapies. Anthony Fauci and his team at NIH are on the forefront of this research - it's one of our most important jobs going forward.
I don't need to recite today all that we're doing to become even better prepared. But for the highlights:
When tragedy struck, HHS indeed offered - in the words of the President - "the best of America." And we will continue to do that.
I want to come back in a few minutes and say some final words to all the employees of HHS.
But first, we should hear from others. So I'd like to turn over the podium to the commanding officer of the PHS Commissioned Corps - Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
SECRETARY'S CLOSING REMARKS -
We've heard today from a few in the HHS family who were at the front lines last September 11.
I'd like to ask any of you in the audience who were mentioned in any of the remarks today, and any others who worked in one of the disaster areas, to please stand so we can acknowledge you.
And now I'd like to ask every HHS employee to stand.
I know that not everybody's job gets the recognition it deserves.
I also know that you don't want me trying to read 63,000 names - especially while you're on your feet!
But I want you to know that every job at HHS is important. Every one of us has a position of trust, and a deep responsibility to live up to - every day.
And, by the way - the American people know it. They may not always express it. But when the chips were down, they let their trust and appreciation show.
In his proclamation today, President Bush says:
Those whom we lost last September 11 will forever hold a cherished place in our hearts and in the history of our Nation. As we mark the first anniversary of that tragic day, we remember their sacrifice; and we commit ourselves to honoring their memory by pursuing peace and justice in the world and security at home.
As we look forward, that is our charge - to commit ourselves to the best job we can do to serve others, and make this Nation, and the world, a better place.
Thank you for coming today.
God bless you, and God bless America.