Dr. Paul Farmer: Healthcare Infrastructure In The United States

Advanced Concept 1 – World Wide Poverty

During the interview, Dr. Paul Farmer commented about healthcare infrastructure in the United States and other under-developed countries. He also emphasized about the importance of community-based healthcare when used with institutionalized healthcare. Dr. Farmer served for the United Nations as an envoy, and helped Rwanda and Haiti to build its healthcare infrastructure. He also helped many other countries such as Peru, Mexico and Russia using his expertise.

Though Dr. Farmer mentioned many interesting topics, I would like to first discuss about how important it is for the community-based healthcare services to work together with an institutionalized health care services. According to Maurer and Smith,

Farmer was the difficulty experienced by some patients when seeking care for tuberculosis. Even though Dr. Farmer did not provide specific difficulties experienced by patients. He did mention that there were multiple, unseen obstacles patients had to go through. Dr. Farmer stated that tuberculosis is, in some sense similar to diabetes. However, unlike the diabetes, tuberculosis can be cured, but the road to complete treatment is long and difficult. There are multiple difficulties patients must face when receiving tuberculosis treatment. Such difficulties include financial difficulties, social burden and cultural stigma. In some cases, the treatment itself becomes an obstacle. For instance, Sagbakken, Bjune and Frich have recognized that the Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) is an effective treatment method but also serves as an obstacle for many tuberculosis patients. They have stated in their article, “to avoid experiences of disempowerment and humiliation among patient, treatment and care should be organized in a way that safeguards patient’s right to consent to treatment and that allows patients to negotiate an individualized treatment schedule” (2011, p.1). The solution provided by Dr. Farmer was for the healthcare providers to reach out to the patients and remove the

It is well-known fact that immunization have saved millions of lives, however many people fail to understand how immunization is part of public healthcare plan. Similarly, many individuals are also unaware of the importance of removing healthcare inequality. Two major ways that can help relinquish such inequality is either by reducing the poverty level, or by helping underdeveloped countries to build the healthcare infrastructure. These two methods is closely related to one another. If the poverty level is reduced, more people will be able to afford healthcare, where the overall health of the community will improve. However, in order to reduce the poverty level, the government must first implement an economic program or policy that can provide jobs for the people. In addition, there must be available healthcare resources for the public once the people have more money to spend. Building a healthcare infrastructure is the most effective method that will fulfill both