Quotes by Paul Farmer

I feel it's part of my job to make the problems of the poor compelling.

One of the things we have to acknowledge is that if you look at Haiti, many billions of dollars have gone into development aid there that have not been effective.

What I can argue is that no one should have to die of a disease that is treatable.

Equity is the only acceptable goal.

That's when I feel most alive, when I'm helping people.

But if you're asking my opinion, I would argue that a social justice approach should be central to medicine and utilized to be central to public health. This could be very simple: the well should take care of the sick.

Lean water and health care and school and food and tin roofs and cement floor, all of these things should constitute a set of basics that people must have as birthrights.

Some people talk about Haiti as being the graveyard of development projects.

God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. You want to see where Christ crucified abides today? Go to where the poor are suffering and fighting back, and that's where He is.

The model of the teaching hospital, which links research to teaching and service is what's missing in global health.

In an age of explosive development in the realm of medical technology, it is unnerving to find that the discoveries of Salk, Sabin, and even Pasteur remain irrelevant to much of humanity.

With rare exceptions, all of your most important achievements on this planet will come from working with others- or, in a word, partnership.

We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it is not worth it. So we fight the long defeat.

The world is full of miserable places. One way of living comfortably is not to think about them or, when you do, to send money.

Ebola has not yet come into contact with modern medicine in West Africa. But when protocols for the provision of high quality supportive care are followed, the case fatality rate for Ebola may be lower than 20 percent.

There is nothing wrong with underlining personal agency, but there is something unfair about using personal responsibility as a basis for assigning blame while simultaneously denying those who are being blamed the opportunity to exert agency in their lives.

It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.

I can't sleep. There's always somebody not getting treatment. I can't stand that.

I don't know much about climate change. But I'm pretty sure we better figure out what to do to lessen its impact -- at least its health impact -- and that's not going to happen unless you have a lot of young talent interested in these topics.

60% of workers surveyed said if their employer took action to support the mental wellbeing of all staff, they would feel more loyal, motivated, committed and be likely to recommend their workplace as a good place to work.

WL's White Liberals think all the world's problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We don't believe that. There's a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It's what separates us from roaches.

If you look just at the decades after 1934, you know it's hard to point to really inspired and positive support from outside of Haiti, to Haiti, and much easier to point to either small-minded or downright mean-spirited policies.

Anywhere you have extreme poverty and no national health insurance, no promise of health care regardless of social standing, that's where you see the sharp limitations of market-based health care.

It is very expensive to give bad medical care to poor people in a rich country.

I think that looking forward it's easy to imagine more constructive help for Haiti.

The idea that because you're born in Haiti you could die having a child. The idea that because you're born in you know Malawi your children may go to bed hungry. We want to take some of the chance out of that.

The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.

If access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?

I've been asked a lot for my view on American health care. Well, 'it would be a good idea,' to quote Gandhi.

The only real nation is humanity.

The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr.

Again, conventional Catholicism does not much appeal to me.

I'm one of six kids, and the eight of us lived for over a decade in either a bus or a boat.

I critique market-based medicine not because I haven't seen its heights but because I've seen its depths.

At the same time, it is obvious that clinicians in Haiti are faced with different, and, in fact, greater, challenges when attempting to treat complications of HIV disease.

I recommend the same therapies for all humans with HIV. There is no reason to believe that physiologic responses to therapy will vary across lines of class, culture, race or nationality.

I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory.

The only way to do the human rights thing is to do the right thing medically.

In fact, it seems to me that making strategic alliances across national borders in order to treat HIV among the world's poor is one of the last great hopes of solidarity across a widening divide.

But as for activism, my parents did what they could, given the constraints, but were never involved in the causes I think of when I think of activists.

I mean, everybody should have access to medical care. And, you know, it shouldn't be such a big deal.

The human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.

Since I do not believe that there should be different recommendations for people living in the Bronx and people living in Manhattan, I am uncomfortable making different recommendations for my patients in Boston and in Haiti.

I'm not an austere person.

I mean we grew up in a TB bus and I became a TB doctor.

Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody.

You can't have public health without a public health system. We just don't want to be part of a mindless competition for resources. We want to build back capacity in the system.

The thing about rights is that in the end you can't prove what should be considered a right.

Civil and political rights are critical, but not often the real problem for the destitute sick. My patients in Haiti can now vote but they can't get medical care or clean water.

I've been working in Haiti 28 years -- I thought I'd sort of seen it... I've gone through a number of coups, the storms of 2008, I thought, you know, that I'd seen things as bad as they were going to get, and I was wrong.

We've taken on the major health problems of the poorest -- tuberculosis, maternal mortality, AIDS, malaria -- in four countries. We've scored some victories in the sense that we've cured or treated thousands and changed the discourse about what is possible.

So I can't show you how, exactly, health care is a basic human right. But what I can argue is that no one should have to die of a disease that is treatable.

I think we will see better vaccines within the next 15 years, but I'm not a scientist and am focused on the short-term -- what will happen in the interim.

I've been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully.

The essence of global health equity is the idea that something so precious as health might be viewed as a right.

For me, an area of moral clarity is: you're in front of someone who's suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act.

The biggest public health challenge is rebuilding health systems. In other words, if you look at cholera or maternal mortality or tuberculosis in Haiti, they're major problems in Haiti, but the biggest problem is rebuilding systems.

We have to design a health delivery system by actually talking to people and asking, 'What would make this service better for you?' As soon as you start asking, you get a flood of answers.

You can't have public health without working with the public sector. You can't have public education without working with the public sector in education.

I can't think of a better model for Haiti rebuilding than Rwanda.