I don't think you just can put people on the starting block and then wait... for the next Ebola-like epidemic. I think that you need somehow a small-capacity response who's going to run the first few kilometers of the marathon.

Joanne Liu

Categorized in : You Think Wait People

I find myself a bit boring because I somehow always wanted to be MSF.

find myself always boring

What are individuals in wars today? Expendable commodities, dead or alive.

commodities dead alive today

The effects of the attacks against health facilities emanate far beyond those immediately killed and injured. They demolish routine and lifesaving health care for all. They make life impossible. Full stop.

care health impossible life

When there were cases of Ebola in the States, I respected that people wanted to address concerns and take some sort of action, but the focus turned completely to the U.S. At one point, we started to wonder, Where is the Ebola epidemic happening? The States - or West Africa?

focus action wonder people

When I was 13, I read 'Et la paix dans le monde, Docteur?' a physician's account of working with Medecins Sans Fontieres during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. It was this book that inspired me to work for MSF.

presence me work book

Never lower your sight - always look at people at eye-level.

your never look people

I am absolutely convinced there should be financial and political incentives for states to declare. You shouldn't be the pariah of the world if you say you have Ebola, but in reality this is what happens.

i-am you reality world

Nations don't have friends; they have interests. The best motivation for a state to act if it is remote from an epidemic is if its own security is at risk.

own best security friends

In the ongoing effort to combat Ebola, more needs to be done to rewrite the public-health narrative. It must move from one that has been infused with fear to one that recognizes the hope for survival that supportive care can offer infected people.

effort hope fear people

If I'm at the front line and refuse to treat a patient, it's considered a crime. As a physician, this is my oath. I'm going to treat everyone regardless.

treat everyone crime patient

People would beat me up after school; they would throw names at me. Children are brutal... Being different when you're a child is always a challenge.

me you children people

I worked in Syria on the front lines, and you hear the plane, you hear the shell is dropping, you realize it's not on you - 'Good' - and then you see the patients coming in and take care of them. And then you have down time. With Ebola, it seems there's no down time. It seems you're always at the front line; you're always exposed.

good you care time

I always say now it's the indifference that kills patients in the field and different populations. We have to break our indifference towards the suffering of people elsewhere.

say always suffering people