Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Thank you so much for joining me here today. I didn’t know how else to meet you, so,
thank you for coming here. I wanted to take this opportunity first and
foremost to introduce myself to you. And, I am Aldona Wos, I am your new Secretary of
the Department of Health and Human Services.
Prior to receiving this appointment by Governor McCrory, I actually served our country overseas.
I was the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Estonia. And for those of you
who did not get a straight A in Geography, that is a much colder climate than we have
in North Carolina. To digress a bit, the average day in the wintertime could be 20 to 30 degrees
below zero. So, thank-you. Now, prior to that assignment - and I was blessed to be able
to serve our country overseas with my children – which was quite an interesting experience
from all aspects.
Prior to that, I was a practicing physician in Manhattan in New York. I had a specialty
in internal medicine and pulmonary. I worked in downtown Manhattan, in all sorts of areas.
I was in solo private practice, in group private practice doing corporate medicine, being the
main consultant for Morgan Guaranty Trust on Wall Street, for the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, and actually, I must tell you that during the time of working downtown
in the Wall Street area, one of my offices was inside of the World Trade Center. And
years ago when we had our first World Trade Center bombing – and this was the first
one, during that time, I was one of the physicians that helped assist the patients that were
brought in after they were triaged from the first bombing. The second famous September
11th bombing of the World Trade Center, obviously the offices did not survive, and obviously
the offices did not survive with my colleagues in them. So from the perspective of our individual
freedom, our individual responsibilities towards the next generation, I am extremely compassionate
about topics dealing with our responsibilities. And what we individually do to ensure that
the next generation is provided for, and that the next generation is set up on a path of
sustainability.
Now, other things about me, I live in Greensboro, here in North Carolina, even though I don’t
have that wonderful accent, and I have a wonderful husband, Louis DeJoy, he is still in Greensboro.
He will not be joining me here. So, I’ll see everyone on I40 at a certain point in
time. We share two beautiful twins, a boy and girl twin, and they are 17 years old,
so I’ll accept the condolences at this point. Two for the price of two.
So, first and foremost. Now that was about me. Now, I wanted to take this opportunity
to speak about you. I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything
that you do, day in and day out. Because of your compassion and your commitment towards
your jobs, towards your personal responsibility, you are allowing other people...and usually
those the most in need, the most vulnerable, to be able to live with pride and dignity.
So I wanted to thank you, because I am very well aware that thanks do not come to you
very often. But you are the bricks of this department. And with you continuing to do
what you do, and my advocating for you, and us working together...not only us working
together, but working together in the Department with the other Departments, with the Governor
and with other parts of our state government, we will succeed.
The goals that I have for us are several, but because it’s internal to us, I wanted
to discuss the goals that pertain to us...us meaning the family of DHHS. And those, really,
what is it that I see. What is it that I see a path for? What are the problems that I see?
I think that we should strive for first, basic things. Because if we can solve basic things,
or basic issues, or the basic problems we have, we will be able to actually have our
jobs made easier, and we can become more efficient, more effective, more accountable to the consumer,
the taxpayer who’s paying for all of this, which is us, and for the people whose service
they’re relying on us.
So, the first thing I want to strive for to improve in our department, the number one
issue is communication. And that’s communication internally, and communication externally,
to every other member in the state, every other citizen, and looping that into Washington.
But the communication has to start with the ability for us to communicate properly with
each other, so we can work together, and not against each other. So, that’s number one,
communication, and slowly, we will structure ability for that to happen. But it’s going
to start on your desks on your phone and with your colleagues.
Number two. I think we deserve it. We need to demand it. We need to provide it. We need
a clean environment to work in. [applause]
Coming from outside of state government, I was a little surprised. [laughter]
Again. We need to demand of ourselves our colleagues, our supervisors, the Secretary
and the Governor, that we have the proper cleanliness in our offices and in our buildings,
and it starts with you. That’s our personal dignity. We must be responsible for ourselves
and our environment. So, I will expect proper communication and
I will expect a clean working environment. It will start with you and I will do whatever
I can to restructure to make it easier for you.
And the third thing that I feel on the bigger picture that we need to do is the community
of the Department. Just look at this. It’s beautiful, we have sunshine. But my goodness.
We need one facility that houses us. How can you possibly do our jobs when you can’t
go to the colleague that has the other set of the portfolio that you have to drive to
them? It makes no sense. Does it make sense? [applause]
So, three things we’re going to work on. Number one, what is it? [Audience: Communication]
All right, everyone gets a raise. No, sorry, okay, Communication.
Number two? [Audience: Cleanliness]
And Number three, I will do everything humanly possible to move along the issue of finding
a facility that will house us so that we can work together more efficiently and more effectively
to achieve the goals that are actually demanded of us by the consumer and by the taxpayer.
So I will fight endlessly to make sure that we figure out some path to getting us into
a facility that makes sense.
So, today, I am really looking forward, whether today or in the future, to getting to meet
most of you personally. And getting to see and learn what you really do. Now, in the
process of that, I would like you to tell me and share with me what your successes are.
So I’d like to know what your successes are and I would like also to know what is
in front of you that makes it difficult for you to work. I or any other Secretary cannot
fix everything, or neither can a given Governor or a President. But certainly, we can strive
to take away barriers, to take them away so you can efficiently perform your job.
So in that tone, what I’m going to do, and I’ll start right, now, today, is we have
a little table that I think is to the right over here, and we have a little box, and we
have Caitlin, my wonderful assistant from Elon University, who will be manning that
table. It has pens, pencils and pieces of paper and a Suggestion Box. What I would please
ask you to do, is, if anything right now is urgent that you feel can be done better, that
shouldn’t be done at all, that could be done this way, that way, or another way, please
let me know. If I do not know, I cannot advocate for you, or your problems. So, please let
me know.
Now, someone mentioned, well my goodness, my problem is my supervisor, they’re not
really nice to me and I’m not getting a raise. That is fine. But we have policies
and procedures for that. It’s called HR. Okay. So, that’s not exactly the suggestions
I was hoping you would give me. On that path, I will have an open door policy. Now, what
does that mean? That means I will meet with you whenever you request it if the time permits
and if it can get scheduled on my calendar.
Saying that, we will take that suggestion box and put it inside through the glass doors
so you can come in at any time and drop some information off.
If you would like us to really come back to you, then you have to give us who you are
and how do we get hold of you, if you have email. That’s a topic you’ll see I’m
actively advocating for that all of you have email. And, if not, at least some way I can
get in contact with you or someone from the staff. And if it’s something that you just
want to suggest, but you do not require us to get back to you, then just give me the
suggestion. I would also like to take any questions you
may have, and I will do my best to answer them. I can take some of the questions now,
and the rest of the questions, I will just stay here now for another good half hour to
meet you, greet you, and to try to answer your questions.