| Location | Austin |
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This week I had the honor of visiting one of our country's leading hospitals filled with the most brilliant individuals and leading edge technology dedicated to treating very sick children. I went to meet the folks in the neonatal intensive care unit where they focus on nurturing and treating premature infants. It was amazingly quiet when I arrived. Much more so than I had remembered on previous visits. There was only one nurse there that let me pass through the automated doors leading to the 500 bed unit usually filled to capacity with small, frail bodies enclosed in tiny incubators to keep them warm linked to machines to help them breathe, tracking each heartbeat, breath and movement. There was only one infant there. My response to this was "Wow! You guys must have come up with some great therapies to help these kids get out of here fast! This place has always been filled to capacity with kids, parents and siblings from around the country, around the world. What's up?"
My friend at the door bowed her head and told me this sad news. The agency that supports the cutting edge treatments offered by this hospital, the National Institutes of Health, withdrew the money promised them for this year and next due to significant deficits in the national budget. They have had to lay off 90% of their nursing staff and other vital medical personnel. They have also had to send very sick children and their parents to facilities far away and in some cases even abroad to get the treatments they need. They can barely afford to help the child that was there now, but it was too sick to be sent somewhere else and the family could not afford to travel anyway.
I am not normally an overtly emotional person but as she started talking and I looked around at that tiny body surrounded by the most sophisticated equipment, medication and health care professionals that were not being used to their full potential, tears began to pour down my face. Over the last 8 years funding to support medical research and the training of research scientists has been stagnant, unable to keep the pace with inflation and obviously continue to support facilities such as this to improve the health and lives of the people here and around the world.
Three weeks ago George W. Bush vetoed a spending bill aimed to boost federal funding for the National Institutes of Health and the departments of Labor and Education. The bill, which was passed by Congress, sought to increase NIH funding by about $1 billion in 2008.
In a statement released by the White House after Bush vetoed the bill, the president decried the Democrat-led Congress for engaging in what he called a "spending spree," and said that the legislative majority was "acting like a teenager with a new credit card." I love this statement - think it sums up Mr. Bush's spending philosophy during his time in the White House. His irresponsibility has put our country in a bad position in many ways. This childish response to an effort to improve medical research, healthcare and education has in fact significantly affected my career but that is not the point here, it is pushing us toward being a very sick country on many levels. The fallout of eight long years of this will result in an inability to care for the sick due to lack of trained medical personnel, lack of basic research to develop and identify cutting edge therapies and a severely distorted health care system………..unless we choose to do something about it. This veto is not over. Congress is working to re-negotiate their effort with Mr. Bush. It must be done soon. If this issue has touched you as it has touched me, I encourage you to contact your Congress person and encourage them to stand strong in this effort to improve life here and abroad. I can also provide relevant links for groups working hard to get this bill passed and change the pervasive attitude currently alive in our governmental institutions (contact me at adenop450friend@yahoo.com). I encourage you to pay attention to what candidates say and what they represent in the upcoming elections. I am sure most of you are already aware of it but we are in dire need of a change.
Thanks for reading.
My friend at the door bowed her head and told me this sad news. The agency that supports the cutting edge treatments offered by this hospital, the National Institutes of Health, withdrew the money promised them for this year and next due to significant deficits in the national budget. They have had to lay off 90% of their nursing staff and other vital medical personnel. They have also had to send very sick children and their parents to facilities far away and in some cases even abroad to get the treatments they need. They can barely afford to help the child that was there now, but it was too sick to be sent somewhere else and the family could not afford to travel anyway.
I am not normally an overtly emotional person but as she started talking and I looked around at that tiny body surrounded by the most sophisticated equipment, medication and health care professionals that were not being used to their full potential, tears began to pour down my face. Over the last 8 years funding to support medical research and the training of research scientists has been stagnant, unable to keep the pace with inflation and obviously continue to support facilities such as this to improve the health and lives of the people here and around the world.
Three weeks ago George W. Bush vetoed a spending bill aimed to boost federal funding for the National Institutes of Health and the departments of Labor and Education. The bill, which was passed by Congress, sought to increase NIH funding by about $1 billion in 2008.
In a statement released by the White House after Bush vetoed the bill, the president decried the Democrat-led Congress for engaging in what he called a "spending spree," and said that the legislative majority was "acting like a teenager with a new credit card." I love this statement - think it sums up Mr. Bush's spending philosophy during his time in the White House. His irresponsibility has put our country in a bad position in many ways. This childish response to an effort to improve medical research, healthcare and education has in fact significantly affected my career but that is not the point here, it is pushing us toward being a very sick country on many levels. The fallout of eight long years of this will result in an inability to care for the sick due to lack of trained medical personnel, lack of basic research to develop and identify cutting edge therapies and a severely distorted health care system………..unless we choose to do something about it. This veto is not over. Congress is working to re-negotiate their effort with Mr. Bush. It must be done soon. If this issue has touched you as it has touched me, I encourage you to contact your Congress person and encourage them to stand strong in this effort to improve life here and abroad. I can also provide relevant links for groups working hard to get this bill passed and change the pervasive attitude currently alive in our governmental institutions (contact me at adenop450friend@yahoo.com). I encourage you to pay attention to what candidates say and what they represent in the upcoming elections. I am sure most of you are already aware of it but we are in dire need of a change.
Thanks for reading.
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Austin
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