Dr. Paul Farmer « Skoll Foundation

Partners in Health

Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Dr. Paul Farmer
Award Year: 2008
Focus Area(s) Addressed: Healthcare Access and Treatment

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Growing up in Florida, Paul Farmer took a job picking citrus where he learned firsthand about the bitter conditions Haitian migrant laborers endured. On his first trip to Haiti, he witnessed the misery of life for the poor. Instead of being overwhelmed by what he observed, Paul set out to prove that cost-effective, high-quality health care could be delivered in the most hopeless of contexts. He founded Partners in Health (PIH) and started working in Haiti in 1987. In addition to building a community-based health care system, he forged an academic and medical discipline around the concept of global health equity and created the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change at Harvard Medical School. In 1993, Paul received a MacArthur Award and developed an advocacy and teaching branch of PIH with the award money. He is inspiring a new generation of practitioners in health and social justice.

IMPACT AS OF MAY 2013:

On April 28, 2013, PIH opened the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais in Haiti, a 205,000-square foot, 300-bed facility. After the January 12, 2010, earthquake devastated Haiti’s largest public teaching hospital, nursing school, and other critical medical infrastructure in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s Ministry of Health asked PIH to dramatically scale up its existing plans for a small community hospital there.
They provide lifesaving medical care to a population of 2.4 million people worldwide in 12 countries. They employ at least 2,422 medical staff, 8,301 community health workers and 3,805 non-medical staff.
In Rwanda alone, there were 660,137 patient visits, 37 health centers supported, 19,759 babies delivered in health facilities and 554 secondary students who received tuition coverage from PIH in collaboration with the Rwandan Government.
In Lesotho, a new 2012 study confirms PIH’s success rates are among the world’s best for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis – the country’s first-ever treatment program for MDR-TB. With its World Food Program, PIH is also providing nutritional support for HIV and TB patients, pregnant women, malnourished children and others who show clinical signs of malnutrition.
In 2012, PIH began a pilot project to strengthen services for pregnant women. The health center, in consultation with the villages, trained 100 Maternal Health Workers (MHWs). In 2011, nearly 2,000 pregnant women in rural Lesotho received prenatal care through PIH.
In 2012, PIH and Riders for Health announced they will work together to strengthen health care coverage in the Neno District of Malawi. Riders will manage a portion of PIH’s vehicles, allowing PIH to focus its resources on the District’s two hospitals and 11 health centers, which serve 110,000.
In 2012, they vaccinated an entire flood-prone rural commune, while a local partner vaccinated an urban slum population (total of 100,000 people).
PIH has begun replication of its model in six countries on four continents. Numerous programs worldwide access PIH’s training materials and receive technical support from PIH’s clinical and program staff.

SEE THEIR WORK IN ACTION:

Here in Neno, Malawi, P.I.H believe that health is directly related to the economic development of an individual and their family. P.I.H's program on social and economic rights, also known as POSER also stems from a core P.I.H belief.

Fighting disease, impoverished settings, also means fighting the poverty at the root of poor health. The program addresses the social inequalities that drive the vicious cycle of poverty and disease by providing nutritional support, building houses, providing education for both children and adults, and starting programs that generate income and help create a self-sustaining economic environment.

Many other organizations used to criticize or think that this is not sustainable or this too expensive. We don't think it's expensive, because most of the time organizations sometimes put a consultant with the people from for the countries and they pay them very expensive, but they don't take that's the best way to go.

The best way to go is to use these people in the committee. , so they can take care of their owner.

POSER starts by employing patients. Not only providing jobs in and around the hospital, but also involving former patients.

And at risk community members in its many programs. Sam and Jiconde are POSER employees. They've come here today to assess whether Edna Joseph and her family qualify for help from POSER.

Edna's five year old child Yunus is a patient at the P.I.H.A.R.T. clinic. Edna is still waiting for the results of her own test.

Married young, she's recently left a violent relationship and has come back to her family home. Her own safety, and that of her daughter. We need to know what kind of a house they're staying in, and the condition of the house. That's what you are looking for.

How is this one?

It's terrible. With P.I.H. this family will qualify for the house and I'm going to build
the house for them. That's our priority. We're planning to build houses for people
like this.

Etna's test results were positive. She started A.R.T. treatment and was supplied
with food. Six months later, POSER had built Etna a brick and tin roof house using
local contractors and After you were here, I went to the hospital and saw the doctor. He gave me medication. They also gave me all type of foods, so that the medication would really work. When I moved in, I sang a song about how happy I am. Now, I will not have to sleep in a house with a leaking roof.

POSER income generated programs help patients to start their own businesses from scratch. These women want to open their own restaurant with the help of Poser.

They started with adult literacy classes, and and a crash course in business to learn how to run a restaurant. The women are all former sex workers but have now become respected members of the community.

Involved in handing out condoms to women at risk , and educating others about the dangers of unprotected sex with clients. It has been a long process, and the women can't wait to open the new restaurant. Six months later, and the restaurant supported by the charity raising Malawi is booming, which is one of the two most successful businesses in the area, attracting trade from passing truck drivers and local business.

Providing education is paramount in the eyes of POSER especially for those who are most in need. William is disabled, and has difficulty walking, but he's a bright student and a keen learner.

To ensure that William receives the education he needs, P.I.H has employed his parents, so they can for his school fees and equipment. Every year PIH helps hundreds of children in this way. Making sure they get the best possible start in their education.

William's walking may not be improving, but he's keen to get to school with the other children. Hose realizes that education should not only be for children.

Deanna is a sixty-year-old grandmother, and a student at a local community adult literacy class.

This is the first time she's ever had the opportunity of education and she has grasped the chance with both hands. She has her first exam in a week, but she's not in the least bit worried.

Nutrition is vital to a patients recover and POSER is spreading the message that without a balance diet it's almost impossible for recovering patients to regain their strength. The hospital provides food for its patients, with a fresh supply of vegetables from the hospital garden.

HIV patients also receive a six month supply of essentials after their initial treatment. One of the programs is working to educate people about Perma-culture, also known as permanent agriculture.

Teaching people how to grow their own vegetables.

The idea is to post the nutrition status in our patients. We have the patients at the hospital, in which they are receiving foods from P.I.H so after six months the patient has finished being given the food. Himself or herself has to establish or construct a permaculture current design at his or her own house.

Working through programs and initiatives [unintelligible] and across the world Poser is committed to fighting disease by fighting the poverty that causes it.

With better education, better nutrition and sustainable development initiatives like permaculture , the health, and lives of people around the world can change for the better.

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Paul Farmer's Article on Rwanda's Public Health Featured in New York Times

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Skoll Foundation

Partners in Health

CONTACT INFO

LOCATION

Mother’s Day Inspiration from Skoll Awardees

Paul Farmer's Article on Rwanda's Public Health Featured in New York Times

We're at Sundance!

Partners in Health

SIGN UP FOR NEWS ANDUPDATES FROM SKOLL

JOIN OUR NETWORK/SHARE

VISIT THE SKOLL NETWORK

SIGN UP FOR NEWS AND
UPDATES FROM SKOLL