Partners In Health - Serving the Needy

Partners In Health (PIH) is a non-profit health care organization. It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer. Two years later, the Clinique Bon Sauveur was set up in Cange, Haiti, to deliver health care to the residents of the mountainous Central Plateau. PIH co-founders had been working in the area for years.

PIH developed a model of community-based care, that was used successfully to treat MDR TB in the slums of Lima, Peru, and deliver antiretroviral therapy for AIDS in a squatter settlement in rural Haiti. National health authorities in both countries have now significantly expanded these pilot projects. Today, PIH has transplanted and adapted its model of care to the epicenter of the HIV pandemic in Africa, launching projects in Rwanda and Lesotho. Elements of PIH's community-based approach have been disseminated to and adapted by other countries and programs throughout the world.

By training physicians, s, health workers, and administrators in settings of poverty, PIH is developing a new generation of health care providers able to deliver comprehensive, community-based care through the PIH model in even the poorest and most remote places. Training is one of the most important ways of reinforcing, replicating and transmitting the PIH model.

In Haiti, Peru, Russia, and now Rwanda, PIH has built regional or national training centers and helped the partners to launch ambitious training programs. PIH is working to standardize training materials used at all of their sites to help insure quality, internal consistency, and the transfer of learning and best practices across programs and countries.