Paul Farmer global health pioneer dead at 62

[Opti]

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/paul-farmer-a-global-health-pioneer-and-the-world-s-most-extraordinary-medical-humanitarian-dies-at-62/ar-AAU8lnE?ocid=msedgntp

Dr. Paul Farmer, a giant in the field of global health, professor at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of the nonprofit Partners In Health, died Monday in Butaro, Rwanda, in a hospital he helped build.

Farmer, 62, spent his professional life fighting for quality medical care for people regardless of their income, race or geography. That quest brought him to some of the poorest places in the world, including Rwanda, as it rebuilt from the 1994 genocide, Peru as it battled an epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis, and Russian prisons overrun with HIV.


Anatole Manzi, a Rwandan nurse who worked with Farmer since 2005 and is now deputy chief medical officer for Partners In Health, said his mentor taught him to be a professional caregiver.



"He's the one who taught me food is cure. He's the one who told me I should make sure patients have food before I even talk about tablets," Manzi said.



Not until Farmer put it into words did Manzi realize that poverty itself was making people sick.



Farmer also taught him to dream, dream big and then make that dream a reality.



At first, Manzi struggled to get his head around Farmer's vision of rebuilding the Butaro region's sole hospital, which been left an abandoned shell more than a decade earlier. At the time, tuberculosis and HIV patients were lining up for hours at the region's only clinic, where Manzi was a nurse.

[chiver78]

I've seen a bunch of social media posts by former grade school classmates who found their way to the medical field as adults. he definitely seemed to be universally loved, and his passing creates a big void.

it's never good news when someone passes unexpectedly, but this feels like a bigger loss for the world. 🥀

[Opti]

I love this quote at the end of the article. I'm going to work towards that beautiful mindset.


Farmer's friends often accused him of being “pathologically optimistic,” enabling him to see promise in seemingly hopeless situations.



In a 2020 interview with USA TODAY, he had a different take: "The thing about idealism, is if you can always link it to pragmatism, you’re going to be OK."

[saveinla]

They recently had a segment on 60 minutes about MASS which was inspired from his work.

RIP Mr.Farmer

[djAdvocate]

what was cause of death?

[ken a.k.a OMK]

The global health organization confirmed Farmer's death on Monday, calling it “devastating” and noting he unexpectedly died in his sleep from an acute cardiac event while in Rwanda, where he had been teaching.46 mins ago