Chapter 4

In this chapter, one of Dr. Paul's Health workers said that "Giving people medicine for TB and not giving them food is like washing your hands and drying them in the dirt." This quote made me reflect about the truth behind this. It's not enough to give something they need, you need to help them learn to help themselves. I guess we can look back to the saying where you give a man a fish, and he will have food for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish he will have food for the rest of his life. A way that people can relate it to the people today is when we see people get liposuction. Sure, it takes care of the problem, but how can it really benefit them if they do not learn to change their bad habits of poor diet and exercise because then they would probably end up gaining it all back again. They would not make any real progress and would be in the state that they started in. What Farmer is doing is giving the Haitians what they need and providing support that would help them progress into a stable community. It is amazing seeing the great amount of effort he is giving to help these people because he is not only giving them medical care, he is also trying to get these people out of poverty. In his study he has come to learn that it took more than just medicine to cure these people, they needed money and services.