AMCHP 2006 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
EARLY CHILDHOOD: BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR LIFELONG HEALTH
March 4-8, 2006
JUAN ACUNA: Thank you Pete. Good morning to everyone and welcome to the meeting. We’re going to start walking difficult times, all of us. We have had major disasters, recently. Some of you were actors in those disasters, Katrina, Rita, other hurricanes that might come. So after that we end in the theme, very popular, though unpopular of budget cuts. Programs that might fade away, and those are the times.
So this is a very special meeting, because this meeting in my mind has to be looked at with different eyes. We all have to improve efficiency. We all have to do thing better with less, and maybe less people and those are the times. Nevertheless, Einstein said and we were discussing these at several of the workshops I had the pleasure to proceed and work with some of you, that problems are inevitable, but feeling miserable about them is our choice. We cannot feel miserable at this point in time, because we are working for the children and for the mothers, and we’d feel miserable if we enter in denial mode, we would not be able to help them. And that’s our major goal, that’s our final goal.
It is a time not to look at the glass half full, not even so. It is a time to look at the glass and feel happy that is it even has some water in it. So that’s what we’re doing. I had the pleasure and immense joy of forging this accent that you hear through five years of working Louisiana. The accent is not original from Louisiana, but they don’t talk like that. They talk weird as well, not like this. And it was a real pleasure, because if you think about difficulties, you have to go there. You have to go to Louisiana, one of these poorest states of all states and one of the states with more MCH problems that there is. So opportunities to do good, is what we need to find and good investments of our money is what we need to do.
The Center for Disease Control had, or was granted a good budget, but it was less than last year. So we will need to cut as well. But we consider that, thet budget is an asset and we intend to use it very well. We’re here to help you; help you, help them.
My program has work with the states in close relationship and we’re willing to do so, from not only the traditional prospective, but many other prospectives. We’re open to comments. We’re here and I would like to request in the same way Peter did, the CDC people that are sitting in the auditorium to please stand up. Thank you very much.
So we’re here, we’re here to build partnerships, those that are non-existent. To strengthen partnerships, those that exist and to think how can we as partners might be able to improve the life of those that are our two people; the mothers and children of this country. So I welcome you to this meeting with just one message; look at it. Look at all these presentations with different eyes. Don’t just sit there. Think how can this presentations and these experiences and this knowledge can be used all the way from personal, to the local, to the regional, to the state, the tribal, to the national perspective, to do things better with less resources, because those are the times to come.
Thank you very much.