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A call for 'pro-poor' policy
by Rachel Marder
Senior Editor
News | 10/16/07
Posted online at 8:54 PM EST on 10/15/07
/ Last updated at 4:47 AM EST on 10/15/07
Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners In Health, a global humanitarian organization, spoke about the need for "pro-poor" international policy at the opening of the renovated Heller-Brown building at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management last Thursday morning.
Farmer, an infectious disease expert, Harvard Medical School professor, anthropologist and author of four books, has opened and run hospitals in Haiti, Peru, Russia and Rwanda to treat patients suffering from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, among other illnesses.
He challenged "the state religion of public policy," which, he said, cowers from alleviating the suffering of the poor in the modern world. For years, Farmer said policymakers told him it wasn't "cost-effective" or "sustainable" to confront AIDS and other infectious diseases in the third world. Economists, namely, argued that it would be too expensive to fund treatment drugs.
"I learned that these conversations are not meant to start a conversation, but meant to end it," Farmer said.
Instead, Farmer said he decided to "leave the policy community behind" until they caught up with him.
In 2002, the new Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria gave Partners In Health a major grant to build Zanmi Lasante (Partners In Health in Haitian Creole), a health clinic in Haiti, and train and pay local community workers to help run the clinic and care for patients.
"We have built up a system in Haiti that is robust and pro-poor," he said.
Farmer urged the students, professors and donors in the audience to focus on global health equity and develop "pro-poor policies" in their research.
"We don't have a good plan as a research and teaching community," he said. "We've got to learn how to link our teaching and research to service."
Partners In Health's new policy, Farmer said, is to focus on strengthening the public sector.
"[In] all of these places we have gone into the public sector and built infrastructure and public sector facilities owned by the people of Haiti," he said.
Farmer, an infectious disease expert, Harvard Medical School professor, anthropologist and author of four books, has opened and run hospitals in Haiti, Peru, Russia and Rwanda to treat patients suffering from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, among other illnesses.
He challenged "the state religion of public policy," which, he said, cowers from alleviating the suffering of the poor in the modern world. For years, Farmer said policymakers told him it wasn't "cost-effective" or "sustainable" to confront AIDS and other infectious diseases in the third world. Economists, namely, argued that it would be too expensive to fund treatment drugs.
"I learned that these conversations are not meant to start a conversation, but meant to end it," Farmer said.
Instead, Farmer said he decided to "leave the policy community behind" until they caught up with him.
In 2002, the new Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria gave Partners In Health a major grant to build Zanmi Lasante (Partners In Health in Haitian Creole), a health clinic in Haiti, and train and pay local community workers to help run the clinic and care for patients.
"We have built up a system in Haiti that is robust and pro-poor," he said.
Farmer urged the students, professors and donors in the audience to focus on global health equity and develop "pro-poor policies" in their research.
"We don't have a good plan as a research and teaching community," he said. "We've got to learn how to link our teaching and research to service."
Partners In Health's new policy, Farmer said, is to focus on strengthening the public sector.
"[In] all of these places we have gone into the public sector and built infrastructure and public sector facilities owned by the people of Haiti," he said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Edith Senyumba
posted 10/16/07 @ 12:44 PM EST
Now this is what I want to see more of. This is what I call real service to the needy. This is the band wagon serious people like myself would not mind jumping on. (Continued…)
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