A Harvard professor and non-profit organization founder spoke at Union South Monday night as a part of the University of Wisconsin’s Distinguished Lecture Series to address the importance of public health.
Paul Farmer, the University Professor and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard University, is also one of the founding directors of Partners in Health, a nonprofit organization that provides health care and advocates better care for those who are sick and living in poverty.
Throughout the lecture, Farmer stressed the importance of public health as well as the obstacles faced by those working in this field.
“Even though we’re coming from a non-governmental organization, we (Partners in Health) are trying to make a choice to work with public authorities in public health and communication because if you believe that health should be a human right, you have to look to who confers those rights,” Farmer said.
Farmer said society should make sure people are allowed the chance to receive decent healthcare and education and that this is done in a way that can strengthen local capacities. He said this is one of the most important things to ensure that aid is delivered and the projects of NGOs are pushed forward.
“You could argue that this should have been obvious in the 19th century,” Farmer said. “But we have to remember that it’s not that long ago that we didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to deliver any of these services and we have a lot of catching up to do.”
Farmer’s lecture also focused on the situation in Haiti. He spoke on about how Partners in Health started in Haiti and has since spread to countries across the globe.
Farmer said the earthquake in January 2010 caused 220,000 to 316,000 fatalities, left 1.3 million Haitians homeless and claimed the lives of roughly 20 percent of public service workers in Haiti.
“We had people from all over the world coming to help,” Farmer said. “But there were still all kinds of trauma -visible and invisible – and this is not trauma that will go away.”
He also said in such a globalized world it is bizarre that he still sees epidemics of 18th century illnesses, such as the Cholera epidemics in Haiti after the earthquake. These could be remedied through partnerships and institutions, he said.
“In this interconnected world, it is not first world, second world, third world – it’s one world and building a modern infrastructure in Haiti and partnership with the Haitians is the way that this could have been prevented and is what still needs to be done,” he said.
Professor of environmental studies and population health studies and Director of Global Health Institute Jonathan Patz said Farmer’s “holistic approach to community health” is the core principle around which UW is building its global health institute.
UW Sophomore Erin Breen, who attended the lecture, said she was impressed.
“Paul Farmer is such a big name in public health,” she said. “It was really cool to see him here at UW and to hear him speak on such important issues.”
