[CPEO-MEF] UH doctor touts improving

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Republic of the Marshall Islands
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN
UH doctor touts improving
Micronesians’ health care
By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com
July 5, 2003

The United States can shoot a rocket from California's Vandenberg Air
Force Base into a lagoon at Ebeye in the Marshall Islands, but it can't
install a water system there, said Dr. Neal Palafox.

The University of Hawaii professor drew that comparison at a recent
Global Health Conference at the Hawaii Convention Center, showing slides
of islanders lined up to get potable water from the island's military
base.

There is a public hospital but patients have to take their own linens
and water, he said.

These are a few examples cited by Palafox to illustrate how the U.S.
government has failed to keep its commitments to provide a health and
education system in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Now chairman of the UH Department of Family Practice and Community
Medicine, Palafox spent many years in the Marshall Islands and he's a
strong advocate for improved health and education for the islanders.

He went there as a National Health Service Corps physician and
co-founded a program caring for radiation-affected people. The United
States set off nuclear explosions there from 1948 to 1956. Palafox also
was medical director for Preventive Health Services and Public Health
there from 1987 to 1992.

This article can be viewed at:
http://starbulletin.com/2003/07/05/news/story10.html

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