Pandemic Influenza Conference: Discussion and Conclusion
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Pandemic Influenza Conference:Discussion and Conclusion
social justice, public health ethics, bioethics, fairness, venerable populations, resource sharing, accountability, emergency preparedness, pandemic flu, faith community, public health
The conclusions reached as a result of the symposium and reiterated in this supplemental issue of JHCPU are that there is opportunity, responsibility, and accountability in the event of a pandemic influenza episode, and that both the public health and the faith community must respond. Faith leaders have a pivotal role in working with government public health officials in managing pandemics, epidemics, disasters (natural or man-made) or in any mass crises where human life or well being are threatened. Because of this multilayered, multi-organizational responsibility, collective strategic thinking and planning are necessary to execute successfully any directives to protect life and prevent adverse health for all people, simply because they are human. The notion of the Beloved Community emphatically means that all belong regardless of time or place; race or ethnicity; sex or gender; rich, middle-class or not-so-rich; educated or less educated; rural or urban or any other distinguishing characteristic.
The faith and health communities must join forces if emergency preparedness is to be effective. While all in the Beloved Community are vulnerable, some are more vulnerable than others. Some are in fact, susceptible, and susceptibility must prioritize the response. Further, faith communities must receive sufficient technical training to handle the amount and types of challenge that will surely arise during such a trying period. Lastly, funding must be fair, and some funding must be appropriated to the faith community in a manner consistent with the task it will be asked to undertake. These dollars must be made available early on, especially if federal dollars have been allocated to state and local public health officials in pre-disaster periods for preparation and readiness. For the government to do anything less would constitute an ethical violation on numerous grounds, especially if the request for the faith community to assist with pandemic emergency preparation is initiated by government public health officials.
So what is to be done? Given the lessons learned from the devastating hurricanes of Katrina and Rita (if the lessons were truly learned), floods, and pandemics of the [End Page 72] past, what is the ethical response of governmental public health agencies in a time of stillness? The answer is prepare, prevent and, if need be, protect at all levels as detailed by the voices that cried out during the Pandemic Influenza Conference and the writings included in this volume. But what is the ethical response of faith-based organizations if the government fails to meet theirs? It can only be systematically to insist that publicly elected and selected officials respond to the needs of community mandates and pain as honorable public servants. The government must exhibit accountability, as should the faith and academic communities.
Faith-based organizations, academic institutions, and government agencies must engage in a process of emergency preparedness during the time of calm by creating an emergency preparedness blueprint to ensure readiness and maximization of cooperative efforts on all fronts. The following steps are suggested as a procedure to facilitate mutual respect between faith leaders and public health officials at all levels of government and participation by all.
STEP 1: Establish the rules of engagement
In any true partnership, all stakeholders must be fully engaged in the beginning of the process. It is not acceptable for one organization to approach others with a plan crafted in isolation that categorically dictates the roles of all participants. Instead, one of the first rules of engagement has to be mutuality between parties regarding the creation of any procedures, roles, or responsibilities to be borne. This respects the autonomy of each organization involved and allows each to decide if they choose to take party in the proposed effort. If the answer is affirmative, then the manner in which that partnership proceeds will be mutually agreed upon and mutually constructed. These steps are outlined in the Introduction and subsequent articles in this volume.
STEP 2: Share worldviews
Given the variety of faith experience and disagreement in the...
