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Pat Garcia-Gonzalez: On World Health Day, I’m thinking about what ‘health’ really means.

Pat Garcia-Gonzalez/LinkedIn

Apr 9, 2026, 20:33

Pat Garcia-Gonzalez: On World Health Day, I’m thinking about what ‘health’ really means.

Pat Garcia-Gonzalez, Chief Executive Officer at The Max Foundation, shared a post on LinkedIn, adding:

“On World Health Day, I’m thinking about what ‘health’ really means.

A conversation that’s stayed with me since I was in Ethiopia two years ago, was when a patient, a father of five, told the physician that it would be his last visit to the hospital.

Not because he had finished his treatment or because the medicine wasn’t available, but because every trip meant taking bread out of his children’s mouths.

Another time, a lady shared that on the days when she needs to attend her doctor’s appointment, she doesn’t eat.

She said she can afford either food or transport, never both.

For many families living in too many places in the world, reaching cancer care means many hours by road each way, before even accounting for food or a place to sleep once they arrive.

For many others, what gets in the way of treatment is not availability of the medicine, or the journey to the hospital, but instead, the journey to diagnosis.

Too many of us can’t begin treatment because our families cannot afford the diagnostics required to unlock care.

And I’m thinking about the pervasive nature of stigma: having to keep your illness secret, which tragically leads to social isolation and delay in care.

Access to medicine is a human right—but medicine is only one piece of health.

Health is transportation. Diagnostics. Community. Support.

If we truly want to create a better health future for all, global health equity demands that we look beyond medicine and commit to the full journey all people living with cancer must travel to survive and thrive.

We must create systems in service of humans, and not the other way around.

I invite you to join us at The Max Foundation in creating a better future for all, especially for those whom no one else is helping.”

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