Joanne Liu Quotes

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.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

Our humanitarian aid system is sick and needs to be fixed. It needs to get a reality check and get back humanity.

- Joanne Liu

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

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?

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

People inspire me. Every day, I meet amazing individuals in the field. When I see a mother who has walked for three weeks to come to a MSF clinic, with two kids on her back and her belongings on her head, facing intimidation and physical abuse on her way, I am inspired by her resilience - her desire for life.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

You need a balance in life. You just cannot be all the time on an adrenalin peak. You need to recharge.

- Joanne Liu

Somehow we got used to death, and then we dehumanised it. We account for conflicts in figures. Ebola is 13,500 infected, 5,000 people have died... People are losing their sense of empathy, their sense of wanting to do something.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

I'm completely allergic to being politically correct.

- Joanne Liu

The unspoken thing, the elephant in the room, is the war against terrorism, it's tainting everything.

- Joanne Liu

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

- Joanne Liu

Sometimes in your career, you are at the right place at the right moment. But you have to be aware that eventually you may no longer be the right person for that position. So build your succession and foster for it while you are still at the peak of you career.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

People say I'm tough and too blunt. I'm a product of my organization. MSF is a blunt, tough, no-nonsense organization.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

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.

- Joanne Liu

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

- Joanne Liu