Transcript
Welcome to Angels in Medicine, the channel that highlights medical humanitarians.
Imagine your child wakes up with a dangerous fever. The nearest clinic is two days away through dense forest, across rivers, by foot.
This is reality for millions of people worldwide, but one organization is changing that.
Meet Last Mile Health. Their story begins with nine-year-old Raj Panjabi, whose family fled Liberia’s civil war in 1989 when they escaped on a rescue cargo plane.
Sixteen years later, he returned as a medical student. What he found was heartbreaking. Liberia had just 50 doctors for 4 million people. Children were dying from treatable diseases like malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia.
In 2007, Raj got married, and instead of wedding gifts, he asked for donations. He raised six thousand dollars, and with that money, Last Mile Health was born.
He had a revolutionary idea: Train people from remote villages to be health workers. Pay them a salary, give them real medical supplies, and support them with nurses.
These aren’t volunteers; they’re professionals. They diagnose malaria in minutes, treat childhood infections, and save lives every single day.
Meet Victoria Karpay, a community health worker in rural Liberia. Her village is called Taye Town. Before Victoria, parents faced an impossible choice: watch their sick children suffer or attempt a dangerous two-day journey for help.
Now they walk to Victoria’s home, where she tests for malaria immediately and provides treatment on the spot.
This has been remarkable. Since Victoria started working, no child has died in her community.
By 2024, Last Mile Health achieved something extraordinary. They reached every remote community in Liberia with nearly 5,000 trained health workers serving 1.2 million people.
The results are stunning: over one and a half million treatments delivered, fourteen million home visits conducted, and forty-five percent of rural malaria cases treated.
During the Ebola epidemic, these workers kept delivering care. When COVID hit, they were ready. Now, they’re rolling out malaria vaccines.
The model is spreading to Ethiopia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone. Sixteen thousand health workers have been trained, serving nineteen million people.
Their digital training platform reaches 200 countries, and government partnerships ensure sustainability. Communities that were invisible to health systems are now connected.
Half the world still lacks basic healthcare, and nine million people die from preventable causes each year. But Last Mile Health proves change is possible.
From six thousand dollars in wedding gifts to a global movement, from one village to four countries, from impossible journeys to care at your doorstep.
Their motto says it all: “Until no patient is out of reach.”
Because healthcare isn’t just for the lucky few; it’s a human right that should be within reach of everyone, everywhere.
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