Much has been made of the drive to make water, or access to it, a basic human right, something South Africa has already done.
We also know that clean water, sanitation, and health go hand-in-hand.
So how about a human right to health?
Medical anthropologist, physician, and co-founder of Partners In Health, Dr. Paul Farmer, makes an impassioned case for this right on This I Believe.
Here are the last two paragraphs:
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.
Farmer is a thoroughly remarkable man who is perhaps best known for his work in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Tracy Kidder's book about Farmer and his mission, Mountains Beyond Mountains, is a must read for all you budding hydrophilanthropists. You'll shake your head in disbelief that one man could do so much.
Farmer now lives in Rwanda. The man just doesn't let up.
Thank heaven for that.
"Civil and political rights are critical, but not often the real problem for the destitute sick. My patients in Haiti can now vote but they can't get medical care or clean water. " -- Paul Farmer
"Beyond mountains there are mountains." -- Haitian proverb
Comments