LBPH has partnered with the Health Committee for People with Disabilities to form the Coalition Book Discussion group. We meet every other month at CLP-Downtown and Business to discuss books with a theme relating to social justice and diverse points of view. Past themes have included feminism, poverty, disability rights, and national disaster aftermath. We are pleased to partner with the Health Committee for People with Disabilities of the Consumer Health Coalition for our bimonthly discussions. The Consumer Health Coalition advocates for a society where affordable, quality health care is available to all patients and works to eliminate the barriers preventing access to such healthcare for minority recipients. Two books that the group has recently discussed and recommends are Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink and Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.
The author, a physician and reporter, provides a landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina as well as a suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice. She reconstructs five days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amid chaos.
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. But as the tenderest hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed.