Partners in Health
In January 2026, a cohort of 30 Rwandans will commemorate nearly seven years of education as they step onto the stage to receive their medical degrees. This milestone marks them as the first graduating class from the University of Global Health Equity, established by the nonprofit organization Partners in Health (PIH) to address healthcare disparities across Africa. The training delivered by this institution is an essential move towards alleviating the acute shortage of medical personnel, a crisis projected by the World Health Organization to exceed 6 million by 2030.
“Our aim is to extend the benefits of modern medicine to those most in need and to counteract despair,” states Eric Hansen, PIH’s Senior Director of External Relations.
Since its founding in 1987, PIH has been dedicated to combating health inequity. In each of the 11 nations it operates, PIH partners with local governments to enhance their healthcare frameworks through training personnel, supplying resources such as medical equipment and infrastructure, and crafting a strategy for sustainable change.
The organization also evaluates the effectiveness of the care it provides and disseminates its findings to other nations, offering insights and best practices to aid various governments in achieving equitable healthcare access.
“We maintain an enduring commitment to all the countries we serve,” explains Hansen, “with the aim of helping them deliver modern healthcare to their citizens and uphold their right to health, as established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Concrete Actions Against Medical Inequity
PIH’s dedication to addressing health inequities has catalyzed significant global changes. In 2021, it facilitated over 58,000 safe deliveries and provided tuberculosis treatment to nearly 100 patients in Peru. Each year, the organization also supports 2,600 Haitian children suffering from malnutrition and attends to 44,000 people living with HIV worldwide.
As fresh graduates from the University of Global Health Equity continue to emerge, they will be poised to combat medical injustice by treating and educating future generations in Rwanda.
Good Store
During a visit to Sierra Leone in 2019, author and YouTuber John Green experienced firsthand the challenge of medical injustice. He arrived in Kono, the heart of a maternal mortality crisis, eager to gain insight and effect change.
“Assuming that impoverished individuals do not deserve healthcare is a moral failure and jeopardizes the future of humanity,” asserts Green. “Every human life holds equal worth, and our systems should accurately reflect this reality.”
Aware of the financial challenges faced when establishing equitable healthcare systems, John and his brother, Hank, launched Good Store, an online platform that donates all of its profits to charities dedicated to fighting medical injustice, offering products such as socks, coffee, tea, and soap.
Prior to Good Store, the brothers achieved success in various fields, including writing several New York Times bestsellers and creating vlogbrothers, a YouTube channel with nearly four million subscribers. Nonetheless, the effort to address medical injustice has yielded their greatest satisfaction.
“While John and I have had countless exciting experiences, traditional motivations for pursuing new goals have lost their appeal,” shares Hank Green. “However, we’ve found immense motivation in helping those who are in genuine need and doing things in innovative ways.”
An Innovative Initiative
Since its launch in 2019, Good Store has contributed over $8 million to organizations like Partners in Health (PIH), a global nonprofit championing the fight against medical inequity. By 2021, PIH was able to utilize some of these funds to begin constructing the Maternal Center of Excellence, a facility aimed at providing superior maternal and child health services in Sierra Leone.
This facility intends to drastically reduce the risk of maternal death, which was previously 1 in 33 ten years ago, compared to just 1 in 3,400 in the United States.
Addressing this critical issue has been at the center of efforts by Good Store and PIH, which have begun to show a decline in maternal fatalities. By 2020, 1 in 52 women in Sierra Leone faced threats to their lives during childbirth, and the work is far from finished.
“The fact that life expectancy across different regions varies significantly is a deficiency in our species, and one we are determined to rectify,” John commented.
Good Store’s initiatives extend beyond aiding Sierra Leone’s fight against medical injustice. During John’s visit to the Maternal Center of Excellence construction site in 2023, he discovered that the initiative has empowered hundreds of local residents with new skills as they contributed to the building efforts. In a vlog about his experience, John highlighted that 65 percent of the site workers are women, with one worker expressing how the project has united expectant mothers who will eventually utilize the services at the hospital.
Although the center is set to open in 2026, the commitment to battling medical inequity is sure to endure.
“There will always be work to be done, and it will always hold value,” Hank concluded.
This article was originally published in the January-February 2025 issue of Intomodel magazine (US edition).
