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Opening of the Second Training Session for HRSA's Ready Responders
by HRSA Administrator Elizabeth M. Duke
September 6, 2003
Gaithersburg, Md.
I am delighted to welcome all of you and to be able to share this time with you this evening. I think I may be as excited about the Ready Responders as you are, because I was present at the creation of your group. It is remarkably rewarding to see the fruit of our efforts represented by your presence today. Many people at HRSA have worked long hours over a long period to see our vision become reality. Let me here give special thanks to several individuals.
First, I want to thank Kerry for the outstanding leadership she provides for our Bureau of Health Professions. As she mentioned, she oversees some 40 health professions programs – all of which are so vital to fulfilling HRSA’s mission. She does a great job for us and we’re so happy to have her insight and wisdom.
I also want to recognize David Rutstein who played such a key role in getting the Ready Responders program off the ground. In fact, David did such a good job we decided that he could do even more. We asked him to serve as Kerry’s Deputy, and he graciously agreed to take on this new assignment. Your new leader -- Bob Arrindell is extremely capable and I have no doubt that we will not lose one step.
In fact, this is our second training session since March and 43 of you are here for this two week effort. Also by the end of September, we will have 71 Ready Responders signed up and ready to go. So, by any measure, we are well on our way to meeting our goals.
For those of you who have heard me speak before, you know how close to my heart the Ready Responders are.
The idea for the creation of the Ready Responders was born in the terrible hours following the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. The entire nation was surprised by the savagery of the attacks. The scale of the terror – and our growing awareness of biological and chemical threats we also face -- forced us in the federal government to re-evaluate our strategies for deterring attacks and for responding to them if they occur.
Employees from HRSA and our sister federal agencies who were sent to New York, to the Pentagon, and to the crash site in Pennsylvania reacted heroically to the disasters. And the existing National Disaster Medical System, which had been established to respond to these types of calamities, also worked well.
But in the weeks and months after the attacks, we at HRSA began to investigate how we could improve our response to disasters in any corner of the nation. And we wanted to coordinate that effort with HRSA’s ongoing push to provide more direct health care to our neediest fellow Americans.
Fortunately, HRSA already had a structure in place to get health care professionals to areas of greatest need – the National Health Service Corps. We just needed a new framework that would enable us to rush clinicians to regional or national disasters, whether natural in source or induced by the cruel natures of those who hate freedom.
And that is why we developed the Ready Responders. Like other NHSC clinicians, you have dedicated your talents to delivering quality health care to underserved populations.
But as members of the Commissioned Corps and employees of HRSA, you have made an extra commitment to train and stand ready to respond to our nation’s call in times of emergency.
You should also know that you have the full support of President Bush and HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. A few days ago, Secretary Thompson announced that the Department has made available another $1.4 billion to the states, territories and three metropolitan areas to help strengthen their capacity to respond to terrorism and other public health emergencies. The money will allow states to continue planning and upgrading the public health system and hospitals and other health care entities that will be called upon to respond.
Overall, HHS is spending $3.5 billion this year for bioterrorism preparedness, including research into potential biological agents that could be used as bioterror weapons as well as potential treatments and vaccines. The fiscal year 2003 funding is up from about $1.8 billion for these activities in 2002.
The new funds will be used to upgrade infectious disease surveillance and investigation, enhance the readiness of hospitals and the health care system to deal with large numbers of casualties, expand public health laboratory and communications capacities and improve connectivity between hospitals, and city, local and state health departments to enhance disease reporting.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is providing $870 million for strengthening public health preparedness to address bioterrorism, outbreaks of infectious diseases and public health emergencies.
The funds are to be used for readiness assessment, surveillance and epidemiology, biological lab capacity, chemical lab capacity, communications technology, health information dissemination, education and training and smallpox preparedness planning.
And HRSA is providing $498 million for states to develop surge capacity to deal with mass casualty events. This includes the expansion of hospital beds, development of isolation capacity, identifying additional health care personnel, establishing hospital-based pharmaceutical caches, and providing mental health services, trauma and burn care, communications and personal protective equipment. Hospitals play a critical role in both identifying and responding to any potential terrorism attack or infectious disease outbreak.
Our work on the federal level is the backdrop for what you are doing in local communities. Today, I am proud to say we have Ready Responders serving in communities from Alaska to Vermont and from the Pacific Islands to the Caribbean. And it is so heartwarming for me to hear some of your personal stories – to hear how some of you have already made an impact and touched the lives of the people you serve.
Scott Trapp is a dentist serving in Cadillac, Michigan. He joined the Ready Responders after 12 years of private practice. He told us that he’s never been more challenged in his life and never used his dental skills more fully. His first day on the job a mom brought in her two year-old with “baby bottle tooth decay” – something he had never seen in his private practice and a condition he now sees almost every other day.
Julia Watkins is a family physician working in Sharon Springs, Kansas. In this small town in the western part of the state, she moves among two clinics and one hospital serving the ranch and farm workers who come in with all kinds of injuries. One worker came in with a finger amputated, and there was no surgeon on site to handle this kind of emergency. Julia found a surgeon to help her patient, but he was more than four hours away. Needless to say, transportation was arranged and Julia made sure her patient got the help he needed. Sad to say, but challenges like Julia’s are a daily occurrence for many of our health providers in rural America.
Paul Heiderscheidt is stationed in the Republic of Palau at the Ministry of Health. In addition to seeing patients, he is also the Emergency Planning and Response Coordinator. It’s his job to help local residents become more prepared for the natural and man-made disasters these small nations in the Pacific often face. One disaster can cripple the public health infrastructure of a small nation if it is not prepared. Paul has created Palau’s first HAZMAT response team, organized and leads a smallpox response team, and handles a variety of other special assignments. And remember, I said he does all of this in addition to seeing patients.
Scott, Julia and Paul are examples of the kind of men and women who answered our call to serve the nation. They represent all of you. All of you come to us with special skills and a dedication to serving those among us who need your talents the most. With the training you are about to undergo over the next two weeks, we intend to augment the considerable skills you already have and make of you an elite cadre of health care professionals within the federal government.
The training will be challenging. It will be intense. You will participate in sessions from Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Advanced Trauma Life Support, to the Medical Effects of Ionizing Radiation. But most importantly, you will take Basic and Advanced Disaster Life Support Training. And this is the first time this disaster life support course will be offered to any federal agency.
I am also thrilled about the many partnerships that will take place over the course of the two week training. CDC and the American Medical Association will come together and conduct the disaster life support course. CDC will also offer a one day course on the principles of epidemiology and how to investigate an outbreak.
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare will host a teleconference on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion will hold a workshop on Healthy People 2010. And, a number of HRSA’s Bureaus and Offices will be involved as well.
In closing, I want to say once again how delighted we all are that you are here. Your decision to join the Ready Responders makes a difference is so many ways. Hospitals, health centers and clinics in the most underserved parts of the country get the service of the top flight health care professionals they so desperately need. And the nation is assured that its government can respond to the worst possible events by sending in the best-trained, most-qualified health care experts available anywhere.
We pray, of course, that the disaster preparedness training you are about to receive will never need to be tested. But America will be more secure, more confident and better able to confront the challenges of the 21st century because you will have it.
I thank you for your willingness to embark on this great new adventure, and I thank you for your service to America. Good luck to all of you.
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