The only real nation is humanity - A review of "Mountains Beyond Mountains", by Tracy Kidder

In August of 2000, an 11-12 year old boy named John was brought by his mother to Zanmi Lasante, Dr. Paul Farmer's clinic he founded in 1985 in the city of Cange, Haiti. The boy's age was uncertain as births and deaths of most Haitian peasants are unrecorded. John and his mother were the only surviving immediate family members. The father and 3 siblings had died of various ailments in the last few years. John's mother called life a series of catastrophes. John's neck was swollen, and Dr. Farmer suspected cancer. The diagnosis of his condition required a surgical procedure to take a tissue sample. The operation was carried out by a competent Haitian surgeon who charged several thousand dollars for the 12 hour trip from Mirebalais to Cange. The tissue sample and blood were flown to the Massachusetts General Hospital by Dr. Farmer for diagnosis. It turned out John suffered from nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a rare form of childhood cancer, which if caught early had a 60 to 70 percent cure rate. John's case seemed treatable, but it took 3 weeks to convince Mass General to forgo the $100,000 hospital bill for the treatment. When Serena, one of Partners in Health volunteers reached Zanmi Lasante in Cange to fly John to Mass General in Boston, she was horrified by John's worsening condition. He was skin and bones and had been given a tracheotomy. A feeding tube was fixed in front of his neck, and the swellings had forced his tongue from his mouth. Secretions in his throat clogged his airway and had to be suctioned out with an electrical device. It was no longer possible to transfer him to Boston for treatment on a Commercial flight without killing him. John's only chance now was to be flown via a medevac flight at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. Such were the moral dilemmas Dr. Farmer and his non-profit organization, Partners in Health grapple with on a regular basis. Twenty thousand dollars could go a long way in preventing numerous deaths from common, treatable ailments. John had no chance of survival without the cancer treatment in Boston, and even then, his condition was uncertain as it had deteriorated considerably from a month prior. After overcoming numerous other transportation hurdles, John made it to Mass General, only to find out he had a very short time to live as the cancer had spread everywhere. This tragic story embodies all aspects of treating the poor in one of the most impoverished countries in the world, Haiti; a world among many with a different measure of human life. A world where a one of a kind doctor risks life and limb to bring hope where little of it exists.

Mountains beyond Mountains is the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard educated physician, infectious disease specialist and anthropologist from his humble childhood raised in a bus and on a boat, overcoming insurmountable odds to study at some of the most prestigious universities and forgoing the comfortable lifestyle and salary of a world class physician to serve the needy in Haiti and Peru, jousting with behemoth donor organizations of the Gates Foundation, George Soros and U.N.'s WHO (World Health Organization) to fund, improve and make affordable treatments of debilitating ailments such as TB and AIDS. Let Dr. Farmer's efforts serve as inspiration for future donors and physicians who will help rid the developing world of much suffering and preventable deaths.