Partners In Health

Not to be confused with Partners HealthCare.
Partners In Health
Founded 1987
Founders Paul Farmer; Jim Yong Kim; Ophelia Dahl Thomas J. White; Todd McCormack
Focus Humanitarian
Location
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
 Gary Gottlieb, CEO
Employees
18,000
Website http://www.pih.org
A family receives medical attention at one of PIH's Port-au-Prince-based clinics after the 2010 earthquake.

Partners In Health (PIH) is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization founded by Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White,[1] Todd McCormack, and Jim Yong Kim in 1987.[2][3]

The goals of the organization are "to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need of them and to serve as an antidote to despair."[4] As such, it provides topnotch healthcare in the poorest areas of developing countries.[5] It builds hospitals[6] and other medical facilities, hires and trains local staff, and delivers a range of healthcare, from in-home consultations to cancer treatments.[7] It also strives to remove barriers to maintaining good health, such as dirty water or a lack of food, and to strengthen the rights of the poor.[8] The approach trades simple charity for “accompaniment,” which is described as a “dogged commitment to doing whatever it takes to give the poor a fair shake.”[9] While many of its principles are rooted in Liberation theology, the organization is secular.[10] It forms long-term partnerships with, and works on behalf of, local ministries of health.[11]

The organization is widely known from Tracy Kidder's The New York Times bestselling book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. The book details Farmer's life and work with the organization. The title comes from a simplified translation of the Haitian phrase, deye mon, gen mon.

History

Partners In Health began in 1987, after Paul Farmer and Ophelia Dahl helped set up a community-based health project in Cange, Haiti, known as Zanmi Lasante ("Partners in Health").[12] The organization initially focused on treating people with HIV/AIDS in rural Haiti. PIH now embraces a holistic approach to tackling disease, poverty, and human rights[13] in a variety of countries.[14] In 1998, PIH launched the world's first program to provide free, comprehensive HIV care and treatment in an impoverished setting. Since then, 11,900 HIV-positive patients have started antiretroviral treatment. The organization's HIV Equity Initiative is now a global model for the treatment of complex diseases in community settings.

In 1993, Farmer used the proceeds from his John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award to create a new arm of Partners In Health, the Institute for Health and Social Justice. Its mission is to analyze the impact of poverty and inequality on health, and to use these findings to educate academics, donors, policy makers, and the general public. Dr. Joia Mukherjee, PIH's Chief Medical Officer,[15] directs the Institute.

Current work

Partners In Health's work is unique in many ways. It collaborates closely with Harvard Medical School[16] and the Brigham and Women's Hospital.

At the invitation of local governments, it strengthens and sustains public health systems in remote, rural areas. It trains and hires local healthcare workers,[17] many of whom actively find patients in their communities and help them get care. It helps local experts conduct academic research that leads to clinical innovation.

Famous supporters include Madonna,[18] Meryl Streep,[19] Ryan Lewis,[20] and Win Butler[21] and Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire.[22]

Haiti

Zanmi Lasante (“Partners In Health” in Haitian Creole) is PIH’s flagship project – the oldest, largest, most ambitious, and most replicated. The small community clinic that first started treating patients in the village of Cange in 1985, has grown into the Zanmi Lasante (ZL) Sociomedical Complex, featuring a 104-bed, full-service hospital with two operating rooms, adult and pediatric inpatient wards, an infectious disease center (the Thomas J. White Center), an outpatient clinic, a women’s health clinic (Proje Sante Fanm), ophthalmology and general medicine clinics, a laboratory, a pharmaceutical warehouse, a Red Cross blood bank, radiographic services, and a dozen schools.

The organization has also expanded its operations to 11 other sites across Haiti's Central Plateau and beyond. Today, ZL ranks as the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti – serving a catchment area of 4.5 million across the Central Plateau and the Lower Artibonite. ZL employs over 5,700 people, almost all of them Haitians, including doctors, nurses and community health workers. Zanmi Lasante has recorded more than 1.6 million patient visits, provided educational assistance to 9,400 children, delivered prenatal care to 30,000 pregnant women, and started 1,700 patients on treatment for tuberculosis.

Community-based models

PIH's community-based model has proven successful in delivering effective care both for common conditions like diarrhea, pneumonia, and childbirth that often prove fatal for Haiti’s poor and malnourished, and for complex diseases like HIV and tuberculosis. A key to this success and to the PIH model of care pioneered in Haiti has been training and hiring thousands of accompagnateurs (community health workers) to prevent illness, monitor medical and socioeconomic needs, and deliver quality health care to people living with chronic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. The PIH model of accompagnateur care is outlined in the 5-SPICE framework, a scholarly article detailing the tenets of a successful community health worker program.[23]

The use of accompagnateurs is one of the most effective ways of removing structural barriers that prevent adequate treatment of HIV and other chronic diseases while increasing job growth in communities that desperately require employment to further benefit the social structure of the community. Focusing on minimizing the implications of structural violence is the key to the PIH model's success and to the improvement of treatment of chronic disease in rural Haiti.

Expansion in Haiti

As ZL has expanded, it has partnered with other nongovernmental organizations and the Haitian Ministry of Health to rebuild or refurbish existing clinics and hospitals, introduce essential drugs to the formulary, establish laboratories, train and pay community health workers, and complement Ministry of Health personnel with PIH-trained staff. Clinics that previously stood empty now register hundreds of patients each day across twelve sites—Cange, Boucan Carré, Hinche, Thomonde, Belladère, Lascahobas, Mirebalais, and Cerca La Source in the Central Plateau plus additions in the Artibonite region: Petite Rivière, Saint-Marc and Verrettes. In 2008, ZL recorded more than 2.6 million patient visits at clinical sites.

Response to the Haiti earthquake

After the earthquake in Haiti, PIH sent hundreds of volunteers to the island nation and mobilized an existing staff of nearly 5,000 Haitians.

When the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, PIH/ZL resources were in place to deliver aid. In addition to providing care to the hundreds of thousands who fled to Haiti’s Central Plateau and Artibonite regions, ZL established health outposts at four camps for internally displaced people in Port-au-Prince. ZL also supported the city’s General Hospital (HUEH) by facilitating the placement of volunteer surgeons, physicians and nurses, and by aiding the hospital’s Haitian leadership.

The earthquake left most of the health facilities in and around Port-au-Prince in ruins, including Haiti’s only public teaching hospital and nursing school, so in March 2010, PIH/ZL responded to an urgent appeal from the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) by announcing a 3-year, $125 million plan to help Haiti build back better called the Stand With Haiti campaign. Part of the plan included a scaled-up version of an already planned hospital, the Mirebalais Hospital.[24]

Response to Cholera Outbreak

Since the earthquake, 744,000 people across Haiti have become sick from cholera and nearly 9,000 have died. In response, PIH/ZL built and staffed treatment centers and launched a large-scale community health intervention so that 20,000 patients received treatment for cholera. In partnership with the government and a nongovernmental organization, PIH/ZL conducted the country's first cholera vaccination campaign, which reached nearly 100,000 vulnerable people.

Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais

A rendering of PIH's Mirebalais Hospital. Construction was completed in October of 2012

Before January 12, 2010, PIH had been planning to build a new community hospital in Mirebalais. After the earthquake, which left most of the health facilities in and around Port-au-Prince in ruins, including Haiti’s only public teaching hospital and nursing school, the organization quickly scaled up plans. Less than six months after the earthquake, the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) and PIH/ZL broke ground on the world-class national referral hospital and teaching center.

In October 2012, Partners in Health finished construction on the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, a 200,000-square foot, 300-bed teaching hospital that offers a high level of care never before available at a public facility in Haiti. The hospital provides primary care services to about 185,000 people in Mirebalais and two nearby communities. It is also intended to serve most of the country for secondary and tertiary care.

The hospital provides high-quality education for Haitian nurses, medical students, and resident physicians. It has telecommunication technologies installed in meeting and operating rooms than link US-based medical professionals to help educate and train students and residents working there.[25][26]

Other locations

Peru

Socios En Salud staff at a rally in Lima, Peru, in early 2011.

Since 1996, PIH’s sister organization in Peru, Socios En Salud (SES), has been treating disease and training community members to provide prevention, education and care for their neighbors in the shantytowns around Lima. Based in the northern Lima town of Carabayllo, SES is now Peru’s largest non-governmental health care organization, serving an estimated population of 700,000 inhabitants, many of whom have fled from poverty and political violence in Peru’s countryside. As a valued partner to Peru's Ministry of Health, SES has also had an impact on national policies for prevention and treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV and provides important training and support to help implement those policies nationwide.

SES also provides a variety of servicest that meet the health and socioeconomic needs of families living in and around Lima. SES provides food baskets, transportation, lodging and other forms of support for impoverished patients.[27] The project also provides opportunities for income generation projects, job skills training, and small loans to start businesses. One example is Mujeres Unidas ("Women United"), a cooperative workshop that participates in crafts fairs in Peru and has sold handicrafts as far away as the United States, Japan and Switzerland.

SES operates 10 botiquines, or small clinics, that serve patients who would otherwise have no access to primary care. Health educators oversee these botiquines, manage supplies and coordinate medical care. The health educators also visit families with young children at risk of developmental delays and teach caregivers how to promote age-appropriate behaviors. SES also supports a community center where teenagers from impoverished neighborhoods attend after school activities. SES opened a safe house for women diagnosed with schizophrenia who, while medically stable, lack the skills to live independently. The health educators help to learn these skills, to collaborate with housemates, and to start down the path to further education or a new career.

Tuberculosis Treatment

SES has treated more than 10,500 people as the epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis spread through the slums in the capital of Lima. SES has had cure rates greater than 75 percent - some of the highest in the world- and is currently in conducting the world's largest TB research study, called the EPI Project. Funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, the project seeks to understand how MDR-TB and XDR-TB spreads between people living in close quarters. In 2015, SES completed the Epidemiology of Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis study which involved 124 health centers, 4,000 patients, 20,000 contacts, and hundreds of staff in Peru, making it among the world's largest research studies on the disease.[28]

Chiapas, Mexico

The residents of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, including millions of indigenous Maya, have long struggled with poverty, political violence, and dismal health conditions. Chiapas is burdened with extremely high rates of maternal mortality, infant mortality, and tuberculosis when compared to other states in Mexico. Partners In Health, known locally as Compañeros En Salud, began working in Mexcico in 2011 and now operates out of 10 rural public clinics in the Sierra Madre mountains of Chiapas.[29] CES aims to provide a more reliable, community-based alternative by training and employing local community health promoters, called promotores.

CES recruits Mexican physicians entering a required social service year to staff clinics. The first-year physicians, or pasantes, receive supervision, mentorship, and training from CES staff and Brigham and Women's Hospital residents. They also participate in seminars created by Harvard Medical School and accredited by the Tecnológico de Monterrey, a highly regarded medical school in Mexico.

CES manages community health workers who visit patients with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The workers, called acompanantes, help patients better understand their conditions and adhere to medications. CES also provides supplementary medicines, diagnostic equipment, and supplies in clinics, using a system designed to forecast needs and avoid stock-outs. Through CES' Right to Health program, CES assists patients who require more complex care - such as surgery or chemotherapy - by helping schedule appointments, offering medical counseling, and providing financial support as they travel to hospitals in and around Chiapas.

CES works to meet the need for specialized care by training physicians and community health workers to properly diagnose and treat the most common mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia.

El Equipo de Apoyo en Salud y Educación Comunitaria (EAPSEC, The Team for the Support of Community Health and Education) was established in 1985 by a small group of Mexican health promoters. They initially worked with Guatemalan refugee communities in the Chiapas border region, and later expanded their work to other marginalized people in Chiapas. EAPSEC believes that "a life of dignity" is a human right. This includes a strong public health system that responds to the most pressing health needs of the population, and access to high quality health care.

Since 1989, PIH has collaborated with EAPSEC to improve medical infrastructure in the region and to recruit and train hundreds of promotores. Over the past two decades, EAPSEC has partnered with dozens of indigenous and rural communities throughout Chiapas to develop local health capacity. Recent work has focused on a network of communities in the area of Huitiupan in the highlands and in the area of Amatan. EAPSEC is dedicated to helping communities build self-sufficiency and counts many successful community health groups throughout Chiapas among its "alumni.”

PIH's project in Mexico gave illiterate women cameras, allowing them to document their lives.
Mirebalais Hospital
Many of the women took images of family members, but a surprising number were of stoves, kitchen shelves, and wells.
Mirebalais Hospital
See more images here: http://www.pih.org/news/entry/women-in-chiapas-mexico-document-their-lives-advocate-their-concerns/

Russia

A patient living with MDR-TB receives care in Russia.

Partners In Health's work in Russia has a narrower medical focus over a vastly wider geographical area than any of its other projects. From a base in the region of Tomsk Oblast, Siberia, PIH has been working since 1998, in collaboration with the Russian Ministry of Health, to combat one of the world's worst epidemics of drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).[30] As of 2014, 39,000 Russians had the disease. In partnership with the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities (DSMHI) at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, PIH has focused on improving clinical services for MDR-TB patients in Tomsk while undertaking training and research to catalyze change in treatment of MDR-TB across the entire Russian Federation.

Partners In Health began working with local clinicians to improve treatment of MDR-TB in Tomsk in 1998. The joint effort got a major boost in 2004, when assisted partners in Tomsk in securing a five-year $10.8 million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for efforts to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB and MDR-TB. Key components of clinical effort include improving diagnostics in order to detect cases earlier, developing a comprehensive strategy to promote adherence among patients, improving infection control in hospitals and clinics and decreasing transmission of TB to HIV-positive patients. Work in Tomsk also encompasses health education for the public and clinical and program management training for medical personnel in Tomsk.[31][32] PIH's work has influenced national policy, which now places greater emphasis on quick diagnostics.

To help patients complete their treatment regimens PIH introduced a program called "Sputnik".[33] Partners In Health hires and trains nurses to deliver medication and food to patients at home, every day. The program was a major accomplishment for PIH and for patients who otherwise would not likely have finished treatment. Between December 2006 and December 2012, 70.5 percent of our patients were successfully treated.

Partners In Health operates in two other states in Russia, Voronezh and Karelia, where technical assistance is provided to regional tuberculosis services. Advice is given on rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis and drug-resistant tuberculosis to prevent its transmission within hospitals. "Sputnik" is replicated for patients who are at risk of defaulting on treatment. PIH also leads trainings on the medical management of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis for hundreds of clinicians, nurses, and research staff.

Community Health Workers in Lesotho receive monthly trainings.

Lesotho

Bo-Mphato Litšebeletsong tsa Bophelo/Partners In Health in Lesotho was PIH's second project in Africa and the first in a country suffering from extremely high prevalence of HIV. Approximately one quarter of Lesotho's adult population is HIV-positive and life expectancy in the tiny mountain kingdom has plummeted to less than 40 years. In addition, the Basotho people are being ravaged by a second epidemic: tuberculosis. Lesotho's TB rate is among the highest in the world, and TB spreads rapidly and is particularly deadly where many people's immune systems are weakened by HIV.

The PIH project in Lesotho was launched in 2006 following an invitation from the Lesotho's Ministry of Health and consultation with partners in Rwanda, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI, now known as the Clinton Health Access Initiative), about where to replicate that successful model elsewhere in Africa.[34] When launching the project, the aim was to improve public health centers in the rural highlands where people with HIV/AIDS had very few options for treatment. In the years that followed PIH enrolled 7,000 patients in an HIV program.

Partners In Health also focuses on providing mothers essential care during pregnancy. It trains community health workers to regularly visit pregnant women at home to check on their health, and to accompany them to to health centers for care before, during, and after delivering their babies. PIH in Lesotho treats young children with HIV, tuberculosis, and malnutrition, and provides immunizations, de-worming treatments, and vitamins.

Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis

In 2007 PIH launched the first-ever multidrug-resistant tuberculosis national treatment program. Since then, more than 1,000 patients have entered the program, which is based in Botshabelo Hospital in Maseru, a facility for critically-ill patients. The hospital also serves as a training center for clinicians from throughout Africa who come to learn about the management of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV/tuberculosis co-infection. The country's first public tuberculosis reference laboratory was constructed by Partners In Health in 2012.[35] Cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, an even more severe form of the disease, can be identified without sending samples outside of the country. It's one of two such state-of-the-art testing facilities in southern Africa.

Health Care Reform & Partners In Health

In 2013 the Ministry of Health asked PIH to scale up their work across all of Lesotho - a multiyear national health care reform. PIH is now beginning to supervise and train clinical staff and community health workers to provide high-quality care in clinics and communities across the country.

An aerial image of PIH's new Butaro Hospital, the largest public facility in Rwanda.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and PIH's Paul Farmer at the Butaro ribbon cutting ceremony in 2011.

Rwanda

Partners In Health/Inshuti Mu Buzima (IMB) has been working in Rwanda since 2005. In partnership with the Government of Rwanda and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), IMB's work supports the Ministry of Health to comprehensively strengthen the public health system in rural, underserved areas of the country. Initially, PIH and CHAI began by implementing a pilot project in two rural districts, Kayonza and Kirehe, in Rwanda’s Eastern Province. Building off of PIH’s approach in Haiti, the project was designed as a comprehensive primary health care model within the public sector. The approach used HIV/AIDS prevention and care as the entry point to build capacity to address the major health problems faced by the local population. Haitian physicians, nurses, and managers traveled to Rwanda extensively in the early years of the program to provide training and program design assistance.

As of May 2016, IMB works with the Rwandan government in providing services to more than 860,000 people via three hospitals, 42 health centers, and some 7,200 community health workers in three target districts, Burera, Southern Kayonza, and Kirehe.

Inshuti Mu Buzima Supported Facilities

In January 2011, PIH supported the Ministry of Health of Rwanda in the opening of Butaro District Hospital.[36][37][38] The hospital, located in Burera district, brings modern medical care to a district that didn't previously have a functioning hospital. Butaro District Hospital has 156 beds and services range from internal medicine to outpatient ophthalmology; intensive care to an ear, nose, and throat clinic. It also serves as a center for medical education for East Africa. Clinicians from top hospitals and medical schools regularly lead training programs.

The adjoining Cancer Center of Excellence, opened in 2012, also stands out. It offers patients comprehensive cancer care, a service that's rare for poor farmers in other parts of the world.

The University of Global Health Equity will soon be opening on the campus near the hospital. Launched in 2015, students spend two years working with Harvard Medical School faculty, Rwandan policy makers, and others. They learn how to deliver high-quality health care in poor communities and earn Masters of Science in Global Health Delivery. The construction of two dedicated school buildings is scheduled to begin in 2017.

Malawi

In early 2007, Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU; Partners In Health in Chichewa), started treating patients and training community health workers in the southwestern corner of Malawi, one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in Africa. Malawians face high rates of infant and maternal mortality. The quality of care is scarcely available or affordable for most people. Those that can pay for treatment are often unable to reach clinics, especially over the mountainous terrain and barely passable roads of rural areas.

APZU works in partnership with the Ministry of Health in the rural district of Neno to provide comprehensive care for about 150,000 people. When APZU began working in Neno, there was no district hospital, and its 10 health centers had fallen into disrepair. In the years since, APZU has constructed Neno District Hospital and a community hospital, revitalized the 10 health centers, built another, and will soon complete construction of yet another. Key programs at these health centers include treatment and prevention for complex diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

The Clinton-Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) targeted Malawi as a country desperately needing a rural health project to address the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region. About 14 percent of Malawi's adult population is infected with HIV and hundreds of thousands of children have been orphaned by the disease. CHDI asked Partners In Health to replicate the rural initiative programs that have proven so successful in delivering HIV treatment and comprehensive primary health care in Rwanda and Lesotho. The Malawi Ministry of Health directed PIH and CHDI to the impoverished rural area of Neno. APZU visits people in their communities and screen them for a wide array of diseases, helping to catch health problems early and refer patients to health centers for treatment. APZU village health workers check on the health needs of entire households and refer family members to clinics for care.

In 2010, APZU tested 17,606 patients for HIV. The organization clinics logged 332,619 patient visits. APZU supported 889 children, allowing them to attend school and receive food.[39] APZU has also launched initiatives to treat and prevent malaria and child malnutrition and reduce maternal mortality rates. In 2011, PIH opened a Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit to treat severely malnourished children - the first of its kind in the district.

APZU also provides financial support to its most vulnerable patients, as poverty is often the root cause of disease. The Program on Social and Economic Rights organizes job-skills training and employment programs (including in trades such as carpentry, tailoring, knitting, cookery, and farming) to help patients and their families lift themselves out of poverty. The program helps children attend school by paying for fees, uniforms, and supplies. APZU also provides safe housing for patients in need.

In 2015, APZU began a chronic care clinic in 2015 to address the growing problem of non-communicable diseases. Under this new model, patients have all their health concerns addressed in a single visit.

Moving forward, APZU aims to use Neno as a model for health care delivery, leading other districts in providing high-quality care. APZU is running conferences and training with health authorities from other districts to expand the approach across the country, allowing more people to access high-quality care.

Navajo Nation

The Navajo struggle with some of the worst health outcomes in the United States. Historically, almost no Navajo suffered from diabetes. Now, thanks in part to the scarcity of wholesome groceries available within the Navajo Nation, one in three Navajo are diabetic or pre-diabetic. In some regions, health care workers report diagnosing diabetes in every other patient.

Partners In Health began working in the Navajo Nation in 2009. Under the name Community Outreach and Patient Empowerment (COPE), PIH supports the backbone of the health care system: community health workers, known locally as Community Health Representatives.

Roughly 100 Representatives have been consulting patients in their homes since the 1960s, making them one of the most established community health worker programs in the U.S. In collaboration with local partners, PIH offers monthly and quarterly skill-building trainings, leadership workshops, and materials to use when visiting patients, including iPad presentations designed for people who don't speak English as a first language. PIH is also part of the growing movement to improve health via access to nutritious food. With Harvard University Law School and other experts, PIH has created "Good Laws, Good Food: Putting Food Policy to Work in the Navajo Nation.[40] The document builds on previous studies and provides a clear overview of the complicated laws that govern food in the desert nation straddling state lines.

With Indian Health Service, country stores, and grocery stores, COPE also operates the Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program. Doctors "prescribe" fruits and vegetables to overweight families by giving them certificates for free produce. Small local shops stock fruits and vegetables. And patients use the coupons to "buy" the newly stocked items. Launched in 2015, the program aims to make produce available to three quarters of the population by 2017.

Sierra Leone

During the Ebola epidemic of 2014 and 2015, the underfunded, underequipped, and understaffed health care system has been lethal to the country's inhabitants. Partners In Health began working in Sierra Leone in the fall of 2014. For the first year, PIH focused on responding to the Ebola outbreak. At the request of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, PIH worked primarily in Port Loko district, an Ebola hotspot outside the capital of Freetown, and in the remote Kono district, a day's drive to the east.

In Port Loko, PIH staffed Maforki Ebola Treatment Unit, Port Loko Government hospital, and seven community care centers. In Kono, PIH clinicians operated four community care centers and improved pediatric and maternity care and general medicine in Koidu Government Hospital and Wellbody Clinic. During the height of PIH's response, PIH-supported sites provided a total of 336 beds. PIH hired more than a thousand community health workers, including Ebola survivors, who fanned out into the countryside to identify the sick, help them find treatment, and combat stigma surrounding Ebola survivors.

Currently, PIH is working with local and national officials to map out the transition from Ebola emergency response to health-system strengthening. The short-term priority is the National Survivor Eye Care Program. Growing out of PIH's work in Port Loko district, the national program is set up to screen all of the country's 4,000 Ebola survivors for complications due to the disease. Roughly 15 percent of survivors contract uveitis, an inflammation of the eye that can lead to blindness. PIH is also doing daily rounds in hospitals and clinics to treat patients suffering from malaria, malnutrition, complicated pregnancies, and more in both districts. Community health workers help survivors find jobs, apply for government-issued ID, re-establish their lives. PIH is also remodeling facilities - adding incinerators to properly dispose of medical waste, installing generators to guarantee continuous electricity, fixing broken plumbing, and building and rehabilitating patient wards, triage units, and waiting areas.

Liberia

Partners In Health began working in Liberia at the invitation of the Ministry of Health in November 2014. Most of the efforts of the organization at the time were focused on responding to Ebola in Maryland County, a 20-hour drive south of the capital, Monrovia. PIH supported two Ebola treatment units and three community care centers, and taught teachers and community members new techniques to slow the spread of infections.

Since Ebola came under control in Liberia in March 2015, PIH has focused on helping rebuild the health system, primarily for a population of roughly 100,000 in Maryland County. Using the accompaniment approach that has proven successful in Haiti, Rwanda, and elsewhere, PIH is collaborating with the government to guide and help patients through every step of treatments. Community health workers meet people in their homes, addressing basic health concerns and helping them find care. Pih is also staffing and overseeing two facilities in Maryland County. Clinicians are addressing the high rates of maternal mortality and tuberculosis at "New Pleebo" Health Center, a 24-hour clinic, and at nearby J.J. Dossen Memorial Hospital, a referral hospital. PIH extensively refurbished both of these hospitals in 2015.

To ensure that facilities consistently have the staff they need, a handful of PIH experts, in conjunction with professors at Harvard School of Public Health, act as technical advisors to Tubman University, a school that offers the only public nursing program in Liberia. To help increase the quality of care throughout southern Liberia, PIH is leading trainings in two neighboring countries - covering topics such as when to don protective suits, how to safely dispose of medical waste, and the best methods for ensuring clear communication and patient privacy.

In Lesotho, PIH works with families affected by HIV, tuberculosis, and poverty.
PIH staff in Malawi celebrating after a training session.
In Rwanda, PIH treats thousands of people throughout the Butaro District every day.

Partner Projects

PIH also supports partner projects in the following countries:

PIH also previously worked in Kazakhstan and the Dominican Republic

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Tom White, one of Boston’s greatest philanthropists, dies". Boston.com. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  2. ↑ Kidder, Tracy (2004). Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. Random House. p. 317. ISBN 978-0-8129-7301-3.
  3. ↑ Klein, Ezra (2011-08-25). "In Kim, an activist to lead the World Bank". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  4. ↑ http://www.pih.org/pages/our-mission
  5. ↑ Farmer, Paul; Kim, Jim; Kleinman, Arthur; Basilico, Matthew (2013). Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction. California: University of California Press. p. 133. ISBN 9780520271999.
  6. ↑ Hamblin, James. "The Moral Medical Mission: Partners In Health, 25 Years On". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  7. ↑ Shen, Helen (2012-07-18). "A boost from Boston in Rwanda’s cancer fight". Boston.com. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  8. ↑ Ivers, Louise C. (2013-02-22). "A Chance to Right a Wrong in Haiti". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  9. ↑ Farmer, Paul (2013). To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation. California: University of California Press. pp. xxvi. ISBN 9780520275973.
  10. ↑ Griffin, Michael; Block, Jennie Weiss, eds. (2013). In The Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez. New York: Orbis Books. pp. 52, 64. ISBN 9781626980501.
  11. ↑ Farmer, Paul E., Bruce Nizeye, Sara Stulac, and Salmaan Keshavjee. 2006. "Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine". PLoS Medicine, 1686-1691.
  12. ↑ Kidder, Tracy (2004). Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World. Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-7301-3.
  13. ↑ Farmer, Paul (2004). Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. University of California Press. pp. 93, 122, 173. ISBN 9780520243262.
  14. ↑ "Dr. Paul Farmer on Rwanda's Health Leap, Haiti's Struggles & How Communities Can Repair the World". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  15. ↑ "Advocacy & Policy". Partners In Health. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  16. ↑ "Medical workers gain momentum". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  17. ↑ "Dr. Farmer's Remedy For World Health". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  18. ↑ "Sandra Bullock joins celebrity force supporting Haiti relief effort, donates $1 million". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  19. ↑ "Meryl Streep, Drew Barrymore, More Show Support For Haiti At Golden Globes". MTV News. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  20. ↑ "Ryan Lewis reveals mother is HIV-positive". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  21. ↑ "Arcade Fire’s Win Butler has his own coffee now". www.avclub.com. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  22. ↑ "Arcade Fire's Band Aid for Haiti". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  23. ↑ Palazuelos, D.; Ellis, K.; Daeun Im, D.; Peckarsky, M.; Schwarz, D.; Farmer, D. B.; Dhillon, R.; Johnson, A. et al. (2013). "5-SPICE: The application of an original framework for community health worker program design, quality improvement and research agenda setting". Global Health Action 6: 19658. doi:10.3402/gha.v6i0.19658. PMC 3617878. PMID 23561023
  24. ↑ "Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais". Partners In Health. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
  25. ↑ http://www.pih.org/pages/mirebalais
  26. ↑ Nicholas Clark Architects. "Mirebalais Hospital". Mirebalais Hospital. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  27. ↑ "TB Patients That The World Writes Off Are Getting Cured In Peru". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  28. ↑ "Peru: Study Aims to Reveal How TB Spreads". www.pih.org. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  29. ↑ "PIH Mexico Expands to Two New Sites in Chiapas". www.pih.org. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  30. ↑ "'Sputnik' Orbits A Russian City, Finding And Healing Tuberculosis". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  31. ↑ Partners In Health. "Russia". PIH-Russia. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  32. ↑ Splete, Heidi. "Partners In Health Treats TB in Russia". Partners In Health Treats TB in Russia. Hospital News Digital Network. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  33. ↑ "The Sputnik Initiative: Patient-Centered Accompaniment for Tuberculosis in Russia". www.pih.org. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  34. ↑ Partners In Health. "Lesotho". PIH. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  35. ↑ "PIH Lesotho Opens New TB Reference Lab". www.pih.org. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  36. ↑ Partners In Healh. "FROM NO DOCTORS TO THE "FINEST HOSPITAL IN CENTRAL AFRICA". PIH. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  37. ↑ Philp, Rowan. "Rwanda's Medical Miracle". The Times (South Africa). Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  38. ↑ Kagire, Edmund. "Kagame opens new hospital in Butaro". New Times (Rwanda). Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  39. ↑ Partners In Health. "Annual Report 2010". Annual Report 2010: Malawi. Retrieved 9 May 2011.
  40. ↑ "Good Laws, Good Food" (PDF).

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