Vol. 1 -- #17
Keynote Address
The Mid-Year Meeting
National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, Inc. (NACHRI)
Alexandria, Virginia
March 8, 1982
Although there's nothing in this speech to indicate it, it was given under very difficult personal circumstances. During the night preceding this address, which took place at eight in the morning, I had been awake for most of the night in an effort to pass my fourth or fifth ureteral stone with much pain and no apparent accomplishment. I had taken morphine in the middle of the night that brought me some relief and a little sleep, but just as I was about to leave my home in Georgetown for Alexandria, the place of the meeting, the ureteral colic started again. I had two choices: cancel the meeting or take some more morphine and go. I chose the latter and explained briefly to the audience before starting that if I wandered off or said some things that seemed inappropriate, I had to be excused because I was under very heavy sedation. To the best of my knowledge the speech was well received and perhaps no one would have known my personal situation had I not mentioned it beforehand.
This speech is important in that it's speaking to the only Association of Children's Hospitals in the United States and Canada and in it I not only presented the Block Grant proposals of the Reagan Administration of 1981, but also referred to Healthy People. The government plans every decade for the next one by using the The Report on Disease Prevention and Heath Promotion, more commonly known as Healthy People, as a reference. I also took this opportunity to introduce to the public a new coalition: "Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies", which I more or less sheparded for the next several years with the March of Dimes being the major non-governmental organization involved.
Block Grants
Children's Hospitals
Child Immunology
Down Syndrome
Infant Mortality
Maternal & Child Health
Respirator Dependent Children
WIC (Women, Infants, & Children)
"Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies"
"Healthy People"
Richard Schweiker