PIH Malawi celebrates Co-Founder Paul Farmer, cheers patients at Kabudula Community Hospital

Partners In Health (PIH) Malawi, locally known as Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU), on Thursday joined 13 other PIH’s operation sites across the globe in commemorating the Global Day of Action by, among other things, cheering patients at Kabudula Community Hospital on the outskirts of Lilongwe.

October 26th is “a very special day” for PIH as the renowned global health service organization commemorates the Global Day of Action in honour of its Co-Founder, Dr. Paul Farmer. Farmer died on 21 February, 2022.

Cheering the patients, PIH Malawi’s Director of Strategic Partnerships and Grants Acquisition, Makhumbo Munthali, said the celebration focused on Farmer’s “twin commitments to empathy and action, sharing in others’ feelings and working hard on their behalf as well as staying close, physically and emotionally, to those suffering”.

“Farmer believed in humanity and taking action in ensuring that everyone has equal access to health care services.

“Let us reflect on this and let this guide our actions as we work towards tackling the root causes of health inequities and focus our energy against unjust policies and systems in service of the patients who suffer from them”.

Munthali further said it could be “very unjust” to commemorate the day without recognizing Farmer’s belief in working in partnership as the path forward in the face of poverty, climate change and other seemingly intractable global issues.

“The one profound thing we all can learn from the life of Paul is that he always took time to build meaningful relationships with everyone regardless of location or status.

“As part of our commitment to working towards long-term structural change, we honour Paul’s Legacy by renewing this commitment to collaborating with and accompanying a broad coalition of partners, as our name suggests, to ensure that we make access to quality health a reality for all”.

The targeted 40 patients, most of who were drawn from the maternity wing, received assorted items, including sugar, squash, salt and soap, among others. In addition, each got MK10,000. PIH Malawi also donated mops and hand washing soap to the hospital.

Director for Kabudula Community Hospital, Dr. Maxon Zafaniya, commended PIH Malawi for the gesture and urged the organization to also help address other challenges affecting the facility.

“For instance, we want to strengthen our non-communicable diseases clinic for we are facing a surge of diabetes and hypertension cases. We know PIH specializes in these. If they can aid us, it would have great impact to the community”.

According to Munthali, Thursday’s commemoration of the Global Day of Action in Malawi also involved the cleaning of the two hospitals in Neno District and two health centres; Dambe and Zalewa.

Paul Farmer and his partners, Dr Jim Yong Kim, Todd McCormack, Tom White and Ophelia Dahl, co-founded PIH in 1987, with the aim of providing direct health care services to those in need.

But Paul began his lifelong commitment of providing treatment to those in need in 1983 in Haiti while he was still a student. Throughout his life, Paul dedicated his life to ensuring that he creates a world where health care is free and accessible to all, everywhere.

Over the past four decades, PIH has expanded its operations to ten different countries around the globe, including: Malawi, Rwanda and Peru, among others.

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