By claiming USAID is a criminal organization and attempting to dismantle it, Elon Musk ignores the health needs of the world’s poorest children.

I am a retired Maine pediatric surgeon and have worked in Rwanda for the past decade (three months/year), and I know that USAID programs make a difference. Medical training programs had been decimated by the Rwandan genocide in 1994. In 2012, USAID initiated a project with the Ministry of Health and the University of Rwanda to provide faculty and resident training: a seven-year, $170 million program to strengthen health care training to include physicians, nurses, dentists and hospital managers.

When I arrived in Rwanda in 2013, there was no specialized pediatric surgical care for a population of 12 million people (of which almost 50% were less than 15 years old). My goal was to train general surgeons and encourage specialty training in pediatric surgery. Two bright, young Rwandan surgeons were enrolled in a three-year pediatric surgery fellowship program. They have returned as board-certified surgeons who are committed to the public health care system. Their services are now self-sustaining and have improved the health care for an entire population.

This is one of many programs USAID provides to support global health. Unless Congress prevents the world’s richest man from decimating this organization, we, as a nation, will see unnecessary suffering and avoidable deaths.

Dr. Michael Curci, MD
Cumberland