On the recordDecember 19, 2012
I want to join Senator Whitehouse in commending the Presiding Officer for his underlying legislation, along with Senator Isakson, and commend my colleague and friend, Senator Whitehouse, for his leadership on this issue, and begin where he left off, which is, in the wake of the unfathomable tragedy in Newtown, CT, the idea that we do not need more trained child psychiatrists and child counselors is difficult to understand. We do need them. The legislation the Senator from Pennsylvania has introduced would help children's hospitals across the Nation and we are strongly behind it. But we also want to make help available to children's psychiatric hospitals, such as Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island. One of the facts that emerged from the terrible tragedy in Newtown is that we have young people who need help, desperately need help, and their parents need help--help to recognize problems, help to not only diagnose them but treat them, and we do not have a sufficient number of trained child psychiatrists in the country to do that. This legislation, this amendment, would allow us to do that. It adds no cost, as Senator Whitehouse indicated, and I think it should be something that we would do almost automatically when it comes to the welfare of our children, but particularly in the wake of the terrible tragedy in Connecticut.…





