Harvard and Haiti: A collaborative response to the January 12 earthquake

Dr. Paul Farmer and his colleagues from Harvard Medical School, Partners In Health
and Brigham and Women’s Hospital provided an update on the situation in Haiti
since the January 12 earthquake.

Watch a video of the webcast. (RealPlayer required to view)

Paul Farmer, MD, PhD
Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine and Chair, Department of Global Health
and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Co-founder, Partners In Health
United Nations Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti

Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer is a founding director of Partners In Health (PIH),
an international non-profit organization that provides direct health care services and has undertaken
research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty.  For more than
twenty years, PIH has been providing vital health care services in Haiti’s Central Plateau and Artibonite Valley. 

Working alongside the Ministry of Health to serve a catchment area of 1.2 million people, PIH has
become one of the largest health care providers in the country.  PIH had more than 100 doctors,
600 nurses, and a total of 4,000 employees on the ground in Haiti working from twelve existing PIH
medical facilities in Haiti before the earthquake struck on January 12.
 
Dr. Paul Farmer was joined by:

Jeffrey S. Flier, MD, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Ophelia Dahl, President and Executive Director, Partners in Health
David Walton, MD, PIH Physician and Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Claire Pierre, MD, Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance
Koji Nakashima, MD, PIH Physician and Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital