Poor patients don’t just need medicine to recover, so Partners in Health also provides food for them. They provide tuition for children. They have installed water purification systems that cause a lot of diseases. And they train and hire local staff who will monitor patients to identify and help remove obstacles to their treatment.
Farmer, a Harvard graduate physician, also trained as a medical anthropologist. Kidder wrote that Farmer learned from local staff that more than three-quarters of Voodoo’s rituals were an attempt to ward off disease. He sees little reason to argue with people about beliefs and faith; instead, he has always focused on providing high-quality healthcare. The Voodoo priests he treats eventually become the conveyor belt to the clinic, bringing their own sick parishioners to treatment. Farmers approach people with humility and respect, which they reciprocate.
Farmer’s own lapsed Catholicism was revived by his encounters with liberation theology, with its harsh criticism of inequality and injustice. He does not see theology as an obstacle to his mission. He says he has “belief” but also adds: “I also have faith in penicillin, rifampin, isoniazid and the good absorption of fluoroquinolones, in scientific research, clinical trials, progress. science, that HIV is the cause of all cases. about AIDS, that the rich oppress the poor, that wealth is flowing in the wrong direction, that this will cause more epidemics and kill millions.”
Farmer was only 62 years old when he died while training staff at a Rwandan hospital he helped found. He lived nonstop, treating patients around the world as well as raising funds, coaxing, begging and teaching.
Sociologists recognize a form of power known as “charismatic power”—Max Weber calls it “the power of extraordinary and individual grace.” Farmers certainly represent that. He has inspired a generation of doctors, nurses, public health workers and advocates as well as ordinary people. He has used the respect and awe he has earned to lobby global leaders and help lead the quest to change the way public health works.
But what happens to a movement when its charismatic leader dies? In this case, the best option is what sociologists call “attraction process”—things continue to work because they become inherent and institutionalized, not just because a extraordinary people with great personal influence.
Since its earliest days, PIH has grown larger and more institutionalized, attracting millions of donations from individuals as well as organizations. They have expanded from Haiti and Peru to places like Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lesotho and the Navajo Nation. But they are still small compared to the demand. And the type of work they do is even more important now, as the pandemic has not only caused Covid-19 suffering — many basic health care services have been disrupted around the world. As always, the poorest people globally will suffer the most from these disruptions, which will require a major drive to improve.
