Mr. Secretary-General,
Distinguished Co-hosts,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
May I begin by expressing my appreciation to His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, for initiating the “Every Woman, Every Child” Project and for co-chairing this event. This event provides us with an opportunity to work towards reaching our common goal of saving the lives of 16 million woman and children by 2015.
I have always believed that equal access to healthcare for all regardless of gender or race is a basic element of human rights and security. Promoting good health for woman and children will also help support our efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
For these reasons, improving access and quality of health care for all became one of my top priorities to be implemented in my first year as Prime Minister. This commitment has led to the improvement of the one dollar Universal Health Coverage (UHC) scheme, which has been our flagship policy since 2002 and covers over 99 percent of the population.
Today, we are paying special attention to woman and children by providing them with greater access to affordable health care including reproductive health care, essential drugs, health promotion and family planning services. Moreover, we have expanded our HIV treatment program to cover all infected persons, in particular, HIV infected pregnant woman to prevent transmission from mother to child.
Furthermore, to ensure that all citizens --men, women and children -- are protected at all times, we have recently introduced universal emergency health care system that allows lifesaving emergency medical attention at the closest hospital regardless of each person’s health care benefit package.
Our health care policy provides a strong foundation to promote women empowerment. My policy on women has been influenced by my own upbringing. I grew up in an entrepreneur family that operated a small cinema in northern Thailand, where my mother would help out my father selling movie tickets and collect parking fees.
So from a young age, I have been encouraged to work for a living and being a woman was never an obstacle. I consider myself very fortunate to have been given these opportunities, which allowed me to pursue my own careers in business and politics. Most importantly, I was able to contribute in building a happy family and make a difference in society.
However, I realize that not every woman has been given the same opportunities as I had. This is why I have launched a nationwide Woman Development Fund to ensure greater access to funding for women to open up opportunities for them to conduct their own businesses. Apart from job creation, this program also provides assistance and consultations to women suffering from abuse and domestic violence.
For our children, nothing pleases a parent more than to see our children in good health and able reach their full potential. To achieve this, attention and care must start from before the child is born until they reach the age of six. This period is considered to be critical for children’s development.
In this connection, my government has implemented childhood development policy based on the life cycle approach. This program provides the right combination of health care and learning programs at different stages of children’s life cycle. During pregnancy of the mother, we will ensure that the mother receives the right amount of nutrition. After birth, to ensure optimum brain and physical development we will provide essential vaccines, promote breast feeding and engage all to the universal salt iodization program.
As they move through their life cycle, each child will go through a learning program that will match their capabilities at difference ages. Equally important, there will also be training program for mother to ensure appropriate child care and attention.
I strongly believe that all of these efforts will ensure that our children have strong foundation to fully develop into responsible adults, fulfill their potential and eventually make valuable contributions to social and economic development.
As a woman and a mother, I believe that there is no wish more basic, no task more important, than protecting the health of a child and the mother. As Prime Minister, I wish to see a healthy world population where everyone has access to quality health care regardless of race or gender. So please allow me reaffirm my commitment to the Every Woman Every Child project. Let us work together to give everyone the chance to fulfill their lives.
Thank you.