On Feb 21, 2022, the world mourns the death of an influential figure, Dr. Paul Farmer. He was not only a physician but also a public health advocate. After his college graduation, he volunteered in Haiti and was very taken by the fact that patients had to pay for basic supplies in advance of receiving treatment.
This inspired him to approach donors and get funding to build health facilities to serve populations with low income. As a result of his efforts, his single-room clinic in Haiti has expanded to a network of 16 medical centers in the country over the years, including highly specialized centers, and employs a local staff of almost 7,000 to deliver affordable healthcare.
He had also helped expand his organization, Partners in Health, into Rwanda and focused on reducing infant mortality and HIV infection rates. Dr. Farmer, who practiced social medicine, believed that diseases have social roots and must be addressed through social structures by developing multi-level public health strategies for managing tuberculosis, HIV and Ebola. The world has lost an “iconic giants in the field of public health” as Dr. Fauci and other leading public health figures mourn him.
Read about Dr. Farmer’s work here