Was witness to health care professionals’ lifesaving work at her cancer researcher mother’s hospital.
Vowing to defeat the raging coronavirus pandemic along with a “world-class team” of health care professionals, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris remembered her India born mother as she paid tributes to their lifesaving work.
“From an early age, I saw the lifesaving work that our health care professionals provide, especially for the most vulnerable among us,” she said in Wilmington, Delaware Tuesday after President elect Joe Biden introduced his health team.
The team includes Indian American physician Vivek Murthy returning as surgeon general but with an expanded role as a “key public voice on our covid response,” as Biden put it.
“You see, my mother was a breast cancer researcher, and my sister and I spent many hours roaming the halls of the hospital where she worked,” Harris recalled.
“It’s why I co-founded an auxiliary group to help patients at the county hospital in Oakland more than twenty years ago” said Harris who with her sister Maya was raised by their single mother after her divorce from their Jamaican father.
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On Monday too, Harris had remembered her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who came to the US at the age of 19 to pursue higher medical studies, on her birthday.
“Thinking of my beloved mother today on her birthday,” she tweeted with a black and white picture of a young Shyamala Harris.
“Here’s my mother, Uncle Balu, and my Chinni Chitti at the Montreal airport for the 76 Olympics,” she wrote again referring to her aunt with the Tamil word “Chitti” .
Back in Wilmington, Harris also spoke of the need to “expand the Affordable Care Act” and “why we have to listen to frontline health care workers who are on the front lines of this pandemic.”
“We’ve all heard the stories about grandmothers and grandfathers, loved ones and friends spending their last moments alone,” she said.
“We’ve all heard about nurses and physicians who are physically and mentally exhausted trying to keep up with ever-increasing caseloads.”
“We’ve all heard about health care workers without the supplies and equipment they need to care for patients and save lives,” Harris said but with a message to “all Americans: help is on the way.”
“And it’s long overdue,” she said noting the “heartbreaking” scale of “this pandemic: Almost 15 million cases. More than 2,800 deaths. In a single day. And then, there’s the economic devastation.”
“Opening our schools and economy safely and responsibly, getting this virus under control — all of it starts with listening to experts and leaders like these; Americans who reflect the very best of our nation,” Harris said.
“They are top physicians, public health experts, and public servants,” she said. “And they are the team the American people need and deserve. To make sure testing and treatment are free for everyone.”
“To make sure vaccines are safe, free, and equitably distributed. To make sure we are better prepared for future pandemics and other health threats,” Harris said. “And to make sure quality, affordable health care is available to all.”
Harris said “Biden and I — along with this world-class team — will make sure we are doing everything we can, to save lives and contain this pandemic once and for all.”
“Getting this virus under control is one of the defining challenges of our time,” she said. “And we will do what the American people have always done in the face of a great challenge. We will stand together and defeat it.”
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