I wish you all courage and determination : final address as D.-G. to 41st World Health Assembly / by Halfdan Mahler

FINAL ADDRESS AS D.-G. TO 41ST WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY I wish you all courage and determination by Dr Halfdan Mahler S ince this is the last occasion I shall have as your Director-General to address you, per- mit me some very brief personal re- flections, because it is at moments like this that memories of a lifetime flash through one's mind like dreams, startling in their vividness and seemingly unreal. But they were very, very real indeed. Combating tuberculosis on horseback in the remote rural areas of Ecuador and then on to many years in India, working with the people of that country, to take the fight against tuberculosis a gigantic step forward. And that was done through painstaking research on the spot, looking at the social and economic factors no less than the technical ones. And then, Eureka ! The control of tuberculosis became possible through ambulatory care under the palm trees, making it more humane, and making it poss- ible to incur enormous financial savings. Then on to Geneva to try to convince the world's best spe- cialists and policy-makers, and at the same time to demonstrate that it pays off to maintain a probing mind. It pays off to dare to inno- vate in the face of conventional knowledge. And incidently, as I mentioned a few days ago, the industrialised countries, out of this new knowl- edge in tuberculosis, made more money than they ever contributed to WHO. That struggle of yesterday has become the accepted practice of today, thanks exclusively to the international credibility given to it by your Organization, the World Health Organization. And why do I reminisce? Cer- 8 tainly not to satisfy the ego of a de- parting Director-General. I do it simply to illustrate by one small personal example the enormous strength of WHO, and to relive the satisfaction of having been part of your wonderful Organization for so long. Your Organization has reached new pinnacles-from being a rather small health forum of primarily the more . privileged countries, to be- coming a universal health coopera- tive, embracing virtually the whole of humanity. It has moved from su- pranational assistance to its Mem- ber States to genuine cooperation with them. It has displayed a re- markable degree of democratic management, combining world- wide consensus on policy with de- centralised management down to its Member States themselves. It has set entirely new health goals in keeping with its own definition of health as a state of physical, social, mental and spiritual well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. And I suppose it can- On 21 July 1988, Or Halfdan ivlahler relinquished the post of Director-General of WHo, the UN agency charged with super- vising the great public health problems of the world. His 15 years at the head of the Organ- ization were m13rked most sig- nificantly by the commitments made by all WHO's Member States to the lofty goal of HFA 2000-and tox primary health care as the' essential strategy for reaching that goal. "It pays off to dare to innovate. " The young Dr Mahler (above and facing page) the dynamic Director-General of WHO in conference with President Fidel Castro of Cuba and with Pope John Paul II. Photos WHO not be stated often enough that out- standing among these goals has been the attainment of Health for all by the year 2000. Two of the essential pillars of the strategy for attaining that goal were political commitment and people's involvement. You have established, you have fortified these ·pillars within the Organization itself. You have done that by vowing to reach that goal of Health for all by means of a strategy on which you agreed by resounding consensus, and you and the people you represent have shared the joys and the sorrows of the struggle to attain a decent level of health for all people every- where, in the spirit of social justice. When I look back, in particular on these past 15 years as your Dir- ector-General, my happiest memo- ries by far are the close ties I have felt I had with you. Not only here, but first and foremost in your coun- tries, with the people in the villages and in the towns, with your health professionals, with your health and political leaders. That I have been able, in some very small way, to contribute to your efforts to im- prov~ the health of your people will always remain my supreme satisfaction. To my successor, my good friend and colleague, Dr Nakajima, I ex- tend my warmest congratulations, WoRLD HEALTH , Aug./Sept. 1988 W ORLD HEALTH, Aug ./Sept. 1988 and my very best wishes. The bur- den is not so light. The responsibil- ities are quite heavy. The pressures and counter-pressures are often enormous. It all requires a lot of en- ergy, a lot of courage, a lot of imagination, a lot of aggressive hu- mility. But when you consider the benefits your endeavours can help to bring about for the people of this world, and not least for the under- privileged, you will agree with me it is worthwhile. It is very worth- while. The era in the history of your Or- ganization with which I had the privilege to be closely associated was, in my opinion, a glorious one. One in which you gave the world a new hope, a new vision of health and well-being, and a new under- standing of how to reach it - and through it how to reach genuine hu- man development and dignity. I thank you most sincerely, all and every one of you, for that unique privilege, and I thank you in partic- ular for your patience with my im- patient exhortations that your WHO should keep on doing more and do- ing better. I thank all the WHO staff everywhere most warmly and I wish you all, Member States and staff, the courage and the determi- nation to make sure that this solid and yet so fragile Organization never looks back but moves inexorably forward into even more glorious eras. • 9