Dr Tony Redmond (2021) Frontline. Saving Lives in War, Disaster and Disease

Dr Tony Redmond (2021) Frontline. Saving Lives in War, Disaster and Disease

Bertolt Brecht,  Life of Galileo (1939)

Andrea: “Unhappy the land that has no heroes.”

Galileo: “No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes.”

Dr Tony Redmond is no fictional hero. But we kind of already know him. Born into poverty. A man that wants to help others—no matter what or where they are. He’s paid the price. Almost a millimetre from total paralysis, the discs in his back have crumbled. Poisoned by heavy metals. His immune system comprised. He’s in no fit state to stand for anyone. Yet he has. Again and again. He bemoans the fact he can no longer physically intervene in disasters. But he knows better than most. It’s all about teamwork, cooperation and delegation. No man or woman can stand alone.

Brecht’s polemic is usually misremembered by people like me as the world doesn’t or shouldn’t need heroes, which in a perfect world is true.  He was writing on the advent of the Second World War. Then, as now, we need more people like Dr Tony Redmond. Someone that stands for what is good and true. His life and career has been dedicated to professionalising aid through the WHO and UK-Med.

He’s a man of science and learning and servant to data. Therefore anti-Trump. For those that need reminding the American President that withdrew funding from WHO—as he goes it alone—the Neo-American approach TO DISASTERS AND CRISS, ARTICULATED THROUGH FRONT-PAGE TWEETS AND STAGED EVENTS FOR A PRESIDENT DENIED THE NOBLE PEACE PRIZE. He also ‘cured’ Covid-19 and was unfairly denied the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Many of us remember, April 2020, during a White House briefing, Donald Trump publicly speculated about whether disinfectant or strong light could be used “inside the body” to treat COVID‑19.  His witch hunt of Dr. Anthony Fauci – Director, NIAID, and wholesale pardoning of those involved and convicted of the storming of Congress in an attempt to seize power come from a re-writing of history. And an unhealthy desire always to be proven right. As a fictional character, the moron’s moron is too bad to be true. The kind of hero that would tell the Gestapo, Anne Frank was in the attic with the other Jews, and where was his reward? Because the Nazis did a lot of good things.    

Humility goes a long way. Not always having to be right. Being able to compromise for the greater good. Disaster tourism never works as the Earthquake in Haiti showed. The Nightingale Hospitals might not have been needed. But Florence Nightingale wasn’t just a lady with a lamp. She followed the numbers and was a statistician.

Redmond details the 2014 Ebola response (among others) as a ‘step change’ for emergency medicine. He helped recruit and train 150 UK clinicians to work alongside local teams. A paradigm change.

How will we remember Dr Tony Redmond? We won’t. But that’s healthy. ‘Humanitarianism always starts at home.’ But should never stay home.

Notes.

   humility, collective action, and system resilience as the ethical core of disaster medicine, repeatedly rejects the myth of the solitary saviour or hero.

Priorities:  systemic, local leadership, and transparent accountability

Standing on the shoulders of giants

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6