From Forbes.com
BUSINESS | 10/03/2013 @ 1:06AM
This Guy May Have Solved the Healthcare Model For 1 Billion People
Amid the buffoonish Obamacare posturing in Washington, it’s easy to forget that Americans universally, if even through the emergency room, have access to the best medical treatment in the world. If you want to see a real healthcare crisis, then head to the developing world, where 1 billion people don’t have physical access to a hospital, clinic or doctor of any kind. Some 400 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. Rural villagers there know that if a child comes down with a fever, the two-day walk for medical treatment can turn a minor ailment into a death sentence.
In West Africa, Dr. Raj Panjabi is testing something that might solve this problem. His non-profit, Last Mile Health, recognizes that putting a hospital or a doctor into every remote settlement isn’t feasible. But training a local villager to perform basic medical tasks and arming him or her with essential medicines can both save lives and create jobs.
So that’s what Panjabi has been doing in Liberia since 2005. This year, 300 “frontline healthcare workers” from Last Mile Health will treat more than 30,000 Liberians, saving a few hundreds lives in the process.
“If you got sick the city in the city, you had a chance,” says Panjabi. “If you were in a rural area, you died anonymously.”
Panjabi knew this first-hand. Born in Liberia, he watched a brutal Civil War swarm across his country; his father disappeared for a month at one point. “Within a few weeks, we’d lost everything,” he remembers. At age 9, his family jumped on a rescue helicopter, and flew towards a new life. Resettled in North Carolina, he went to Chapel Hill, became a doctor and joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School – a ticket to a life of fat salaries and high prestige.
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BUSINESS | 10/03/2013 @ 1:06AM
This Guy May Have Solved the Healthcare Model For 1 Billion People
Amid the buffoonish Obamacare posturing in Washington, it’s easy to forget that Americans universally, if even through the emergency room, have access to the best medical treatment in the world. If you want to see a real healthcare crisis, then head to the developing world, where 1 billion people don’t have physical access to a hospital, clinic or doctor of any kind. Some 400 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. Rural villagers there know that if a child comes down with a fever, the two-day walk for medical treatment can turn a minor ailment into a death sentence.
In West Africa, Dr. Raj Panjabi is testing something that might solve this problem. His non-profit, Last Mile Health, recognizes that putting a hospital or a doctor into every remote settlement isn’t feasible. But training a local villager to perform basic medical tasks and arming him or her with essential medicines can both save lives and create jobs.
So that’s what Panjabi has been doing in Liberia since 2005. This year, 300 “frontline healthcare workers” from Last Mile Health will treat more than 30,000 Liberians, saving a few hundreds lives in the process.
“If you got sick the city in the city, you had a chance,” says Panjabi. “If you were in a rural area, you died anonymously.”
Panjabi knew this first-hand. Born in Liberia, he watched a brutal Civil War swarm across his country; his father disappeared for a month at one point. “Within a few weeks, we’d lost everything,” he remembers. At age 9, his family jumped on a rescue helicopter, and flew towards a new life. Resettled in North Carolina, he went to Chapel Hill, became a doctor and joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School – a ticket to a life of fat salaries and high prestige.
Read more from Forbes.com >>
