Grateful for Healthcare and Medical Science

As I process stunning headlines about 20,000 in job cuts announced to the federal workforce at Health and Human Services, I want to give a shout out today to modern medicine and our healthcare workers.

My son Ronan was born four weeks early. The first 24 hours of his life he was on oxygen, and the first 48 on an IV drip. He’s only just learning how to eat small amounts of his mother’s milk, so they are feeding him primarily through a tube.

Without modern medicine and science, decades ago Ronan might not have had a strong chance at life. But with the care of incredible medical staff here at the hospital, he’s already making steady progress. They took him off the IV last night, and while he’ll need to be under blue light for jaundice for the next 24 hours and may struggle to eat for a while, we still hope to have him home in two to three weeks.

I don’t know where we would be without all the advances in medicine and all the professional healthcare Ronan is now receiving.

As I held my baby in my arms (after a harrowing 36 hours to get here from across the world), all I could feel was grateful and appreciative, to the universe, to my amazing and brave surrogate, to my niece Camille who never left Ronan’s side the first days, to the nurses and doctors here in this hospital outside Chicago.

Healthcare is a human right, and a country like ours should provide it to all, without condition and without charge to those who cannot afford it. We should be nurturing our health institutions, our research labs and our medical technologies and guarding them as our nation’s crown jewels, not ripping them apart or crippling them for political reasons.

Baby Ronan has a tough couple of weeks ahead, but we’re confident he’ll pull through and leave the hospital as a healthy and robust infant. Every child born after him should get the same chance and the same kind of support that makes his future possible.

I made him a promise this morning that I’m not just going to fight for him, but for every kid and for every elderly patient and for anyone in need of care who cannot afford or receive it.

That’s the kind of world we should have. That’s the kind of world we must and will demand.

I can’t wait to bring Ronan home to see the rest of his family. And I’m so thankful that I can feel such assurance that that day is only weeks away, thanks to his caregivers and to modern medical science.