I believe in health care as a human right

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=98460202&m=98566591


Weekend Edition Sunday, December 21, 2008 · I believe in health care as a human right. I've worked as a doctor in many places, and I've seen where to be poor means to be bereft of rights.

I saw early on, still just a medical student, the panicky dead-end faced by so many of the destitute sick: a young woman dying in childbirth; a child writhing in the spasms of a terrible disease for which a vaccine has existed — for more than a century; a friend whose guts were irreparably shredded by bacteria from impure water; an 8 year old caught in cross-fire.

Li mouri bet — what a stupid death, goes one Haitian response.

Fighting such "stupid deaths" is never the work of one, or even of a small group. I've had the privilege of joining many others providing medical care to people who would otherwise not be able to get it. The number of those eager to serve is impressive, and so is the amount that can be accomplished. I believe that stupid deaths can be averted; we've done it again and again. But this hard and painful work has never yet been an urgent global priority.

The fight for health as a human right, a fight with real promise, has so far been plagued by failures. Failure because we are chronically short of resources. Failure because we are too often at the mercy of those with the power and money to decide the fates of hundreds of millions. Failure because ill health, as we have learned again and again, is more often than not a symptom of poverty and violence and inequality — and we do little to fight those when we provide just vaccines, or only treatment for one disease or another.

Every premature death, and there are millions of these each year, should be considered a rebuke.

I know it's not enough to attend only to the immediate needs of the patient in front of me. We must also call attention to the failures and inadequacy of our own best efforts. The goal of preventing human suffering must be linked to the task of bringing others, many others, into a movement for basic rights.

The most vulnerable — those whose rights are trampled, those rarely invited to summarize their convictions for a radio audience — still believe in human rights, in spite of — or perhaps because of — their own troubles. Seeing this in Haiti and elsewhere has moved me deeply and taught me a great deal.

I move uneasily between the obligation to intervene and the troubling knowledge that much of the work we do, praised as "humanitarian" or "charitable," does not always lead us closer to our goal. That goal is nothing less than the refashioning of our world into one in which no one starves, drinks impure water, lives in fear of the powerful and violent, or dies ill and unattended.

Of course such a world is a utopia, and most of us know that we live in a dystopia. But all of us carry somewhere within us the belief that moving away from dystopia moves us towards something better and more humane. I still believe this.

Independently produced for Weekend Edition Sunday by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.

Pòl Famè se yon gason totalkapital.

De kalite blan konsa, ti nèg sousou ki ap pote blan kolonyalis yo sou branka te dwe pote misye pito.

Sassaye

Mwen li foto ke colo mete sou forum nan yon lot jan.mwen ka twonpe men mwen pa kwè li vle montre siperyorite yon ras mwen pi kwè li vle di fok nou sispann restavekism ki fè nou kwè ke yo siperyè fok nou adopte tou sa yo genyen lakay yo e meprise sa ki pa nou.Mwen kwè li vle di nou pou nou retire karkan yo kite nan kou nou yo ki anpeche nou apresye sa ki pa nou.Mwen panse li vle montre ke esklavaj la toujou eksiste se devwa nou pou nou mete esklavajist yo a tè pou nou sispann plenyen e pran destine niou an men.mwen kwè li vle di ke yo pa ba moun liberte se wou ki pou pran li.li di se pou nou mete ti blan an a tè.

Mèsi Sanmalis pou tout eksplikasyon sayo.
Sa vle di ke linèt nou pa kalibre menmjan.

Sa mwen wè ak de je m: 4 ti nèg esklav, pyeatè, gwo dyòl, ap pote yon blan ak kas kolonyal li lan tèt li.
Se karikati moun jwenn lan tout istwa kolonyal rasis.

Mwen pa wè oken kapsyon ki kondane aksyon saa, ni anyen ki endike sa w di yo.

Mwen pa konen sa li pran pou yon nèg gade pòtre imilyan saa epi bali tout kredi saa.

Petèt mwen avèg.
Men mwen pa kwè sa.

An nou tounen nan sa Dr farmer di ya.Health care is a human right.Lè map tande e li sa Dr farmer di mwen konsidere li kom yon revolutyonè;mwen pa ta etonne si mwen tande yon jou ke yo ba li pri Nobel; mwen kwè li merite li.Kom li di ya se pa yon ti zev isit yon ti zev an afrik ki pa chanje kondityon malsite sou la tè fok reichess la tè separe pami tout moun pou 95% moun bouke soufri ak mladi ,grangou, la gè etc, pou sa reyalise fok nou tout lite.

Se sa menm.
Nèg tankou Dr Famè totalkapital lan tout kote.
Se yon sitwayen mondyal ki pa gen ras, ni koulè.
Se yon frè pou tout malere.
Si yon nèg pote l sou branka,
wa p fè eloj yon moun korèk.