Queen Mathilde of the Belgians needed the help of crutches and a wheelchair to get herself around in the Egmont Palace in Brussels where she attended an EU-conference on ebola. But the queen, who reportedly injured her knee during her skiing holiday in Switzerland (the palace won’t confirm this, treating the mishap as a private matter), rose to the occasion and did not complain about the inconvenience.
Queen Mathilde in her opening speech to the conference spoke of the deep concern concerning the magnitude and effects, and threat to public health of the ebola virus and pandemic. “Families have been shattered, children orphaned, communities challenged by a new and frightening scourge. (…) The scale of this tragedy and the speed with which it unfolded were unprecedented”, the queen said.
She started off in English, which is clearly not her native tongue but her training as speech coach showed in her clear diction and pronunciation, making the speech easy to follow despite the French accent. The queen paid tribute “to those who have been in the front line of the fight against ebola from the very first: to the health workers of Guinée, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Their determination and their dedication to their vocation to help the sick have been crucial in stemming the disease.”
She did not forget that “some doctors, nurses and medical orderlies have even paid the ultimate price, losing their own lives in their efforts to save patients.” Queen Mathilde said to “We must not rest until we reach the goal of zero infections, when we can say the disease has been eliminated. For now, at least.” But she added: “We need to do all we can to ensure that no similar epidemic can ever get out of hand again, as this one did. We need to look hard at the lessons that can be learned from the experiences of recent years.”
© RB; Screenshot TV.
The speech of Queen Mathilde in full: here
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