General Convention: Disaster Resilience

I've continued to look at resolutions to General Convention that have some relation to healthcare topics. One recently added that I want to hold up is D007: Disaster Resilience Policy. As the text is somewhat lengthy, I won't copy in the whole thing, but I do encourage you to read it.

The larger points of the policy are to commend Episcopal Relief and Development in their past work of disaster relief, and to encourage dioceses and congregations, working with ERD, to develop not only short term but also longer term resources and plans to respond to disaster. That longer term response is the point of "resilience:" that to rebuild and restore after a disaster takes a long time, and a longer commitment of resources and effort.

I was, though, struck by one further sentence: "That the General Convention urge the U.S. federal government to fund and support not only immediate, but also long-term community and economic recovery from human-caused and natural disasters in the 50 States and U.S. Territories in equal treatment,...." [emphasis mine] That seems particularly apt, especially in light of the recently reported Harvard study estimating that in Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria resulted in thousands more deaths than have been reported by official agencies. The study uses the criteria of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the justly-famous CDC), and reflects both those who died directly (flying debris, floods, etc.) and those who died because the healthcare and social systems around them were destroyed and not quickly rebuilt.

While there can be arguments whether responses of governments at all levels have been adequate in our recent disasters, including Maria (in 2017 territories and states of the United States were also struck by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma), there's a strong case to be made that federal resources to the states affected were significantly and proportionally greater than those provided to Puerto Rico. I can't speak to whether the response to the U.S. Virgin Islands was more similar to the states or to Puerto Rico; but the differences between that territory and the states has been widely reported and evaluated. In that light the call for equal treatment for territories as for states seems especially poignant.

By the way, please remember that the Resolutions in the Virtual Binder for General Convention are available to anyone. Link to the Virtual Binder, or link through from the General Convention web site, and you can see what's proposed. Remember that what's proposed may not be what's actually debated and voted on; but's it's where we'll start. So, take some time to look and see what might interest you.