Care, not dollar top priority, Elders tells UA community

Ian Mayer Arizona Daily Wildcat Former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders speaks last night in the Arizona Ballroom of the Memorial Student Union. During the ASUA-sponsored event, Elders offered some possible solutions to education, health care and other problems plaguing the country.

"We live in a society where every criminal has the right to a lawyer," Elders said. "Why shouldn't every sick person have the right to a doctor?"

Elders spoke to an audience of about 100 last night in the Memorial Student Union Arizona Ballroom.

Telling the audience that various problems in society must be "dealt with," Elders used her trademark authoritative and forceful tone while presenting statistic after statistic about issues that included problems with universal health care and teen-age pregnancy.

In 1996, $39 billion was spent on teen-age pregnancy while $131 million was spent to prevent pregnancy, she said.

"People were saying I was teaching people how to have sex, but I was teaching people how to prevent pregnancy," said Elders, referring to controversy generated by conservative and religious groups while she worked for about two years as part of the Clinton administration.

Although fliers billed the Associated Students-sponsored speech with the slogan, "Safe Sex Is In the Palm of Your Hand," Elders spoke little about an issue that caused commotion while she held office in Washington - masturbation.

"Kids should be taught that hair won't grow on their hands, they won't go blind and they won't go crazy," Elders said. "It got blown up that I wanted to teach children how to masturbate and that's not something we need to teach."

But Elders came to the University of Arizona to present her opinions about health care in the 21st century.

She said Americans are uneducated in health and nutrition issues, and denounced the current "sickcare" system.

"We don't educate our people to be healthy," Elders said before the 40-minute speech. "Fifty percent of people in our hospitals just didn't take their medications properly, and when it comes to your health, what you don't know can kill you."

And she offered a barrage of numbers and statements supporting her opinions on crime in the United States.

Elders maintained throughout her presentation that violence is a health problem that plagues America.

As a professor at the University of Arkansas, she denounced the recent shooting at a middle school in Jonesboro, Ark., that left four students and a teacher dead on the school's playground.

"How do we prevent this problem from repeating itself?" Elders asked. "We have to recognize when children are suffering so much they have to kill."

Elders answered more than 10 questions from an audience packed with students, faculty, staff and citizens of Tucson.

One inquiry came from Fatima Imara, a biology senior who was recently accepted to medical school.

"What can I do to serve my patients as a future doctor?" Imara asked Elders.

"Care," Elders responded. "Put the needs of the patient before the needs of the dollar."