IDWeek 2022 Call to Action |
Urge Congress to Support the ID Workforce
Congressional leaders need to hear from ID professionals to advance ID loan repayment legislation. Please fill out the below form to sign onto this letter:
Dear Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, Leader Schumer and Leader McConnell:
As adult and pediatric infectious diseases (ID) professionals serving on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and monkeypox outbreak, we urge you to enact critically needed legislation this year that will augment our future ID workforce to ensure we can mount a robust, equitable, cost-effective response to ongoing and future public health emergencies.
Nearly 80% of counties in the US do not have a single ID physician, and similar shortages persist among other ID/HIV clinicians. Large swaths of your own states lack an essential ID workforce, putting many of your constituents at greater risk of severe and unnecessary illness and death.
We play essential roles in emergency preparedness and response, combating antimicrobial resistance, ending HIV as an epidemic, and facilitating the safe provision of complex medical care such as cancer chemotherapy and organ transplantation. However, due in large part to financial considerations, we cannot recruit enough new professionals to our field, particularly in rural and other underserved communities.
We urge you to enact in an end-of-year legislative package several key provisions from the PREVENT Pandemics Act, including first and foremost the BIO Preparedness Workforce Pilot Program, which would incentivize health care professionals to pursue careers in ID/HIV and practice in underserved communities through targeted loan repayment. We also support provisions in PREVENT that would improve public health preparedness and response capabilities, accelerate research and medical product development, strengthen the medical product supply chain and prevent shortages.
ID care saves lives, reduces health care costs, and limits the devasting impacts of outbreaks and pandemics, but the majority of people in the US cannot access ID experts in their communities. You have the opportunity this year to change that and ensure a healthier future for your constituents. For the last two and a half years, America has counted on us. Now we are counting on you.