On this episode of wRight to the Root, Stephanie Wright sits down with Dr. Phillipa Boulle, a non-communicable disease (NCD) advisor with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Switzerland, based in Geneva, to expose what it really takes to treat chronic illness in the middle of crisis.

Dr. Boulle breaks down the growing global diabetes emergency, including why the vast majority of people living with diabetes are in low and middle income countries, and why sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing the fastest rise. She explains how MSF teams work to deliver care in war zones, displacement camps, and protracted humanitarian emergencies, where access to insulin, monitoring supplies, and even consistent food can disappear overnight.

This conversation goes straight to the root of the problem, including:

• Why insulin access is still dangerously limited and overpriced, especially for people with type 1 diabetes who need it to survive

• The hidden crisis of missing glucose monitoring tools, making insulin use far more dangerous in humanitarian settings

• How emergencies like Gaza reveal life-threatening gaps in continuity of care when people are forced to flee repeatedly

• MSF research showing insulin can remain stable at higher temperatures than labels suggest, changing what is possible in settings without refrigeration

• The double standard in diabetes care, and why patients in the harshest conditions often get the hardest-to-use tools

• What’s at stake in the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs (September in New York), and why emergency diabetes care must be explicitly included

• How patient advocacy and government pressure can shift corporate behavior, and how Americans can support global health equity

A powerful, grounded conversation about survival, dignity, and the urgent fight to treat healthcare as a human right, not a business.

I flew all the way to Montevideo, Uruguay to sit down face-to-face with Dr. Ashok Philip (Malaysia), President of the World Medical Association, and this conversation goes straight to the root of why healthcare systems keep failing the people they are supposed to serve.

The World Medical Association (WMA) was born in the shadow of the Nuremberg Trials and the medical atrocities of WWII, and that origin story still shapes its mission today: defend medical ethics, protect physician independence, and advocate for patients across borders. Dr. Philip breaks down what the WMA actually does, why it is often confused with the WHO (it is not the WHO), and how a global network of 115 member medical associations tries to push back when governments, corporations, and insurers prioritize “quick and cheap” over what patients truly need.

If you have ever felt powerless watching insurance denials, bureaucratic delays, cookie-cutter care, or political posturing hijack medicine, this episode will hit home. And if you are a clinician, this is your reminder that policy is not optional, it is where patient outcomes are decided.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why the WMA was founded, and why ethics still sits at the center of global medicine

• How private insurance denials and administrative burden are not “just an American problem”

• Why prevention and health literacy are always “unsexy,” but essential

• Universal healthcare realities, including rationing, access gaps, and technology tradeoffs

• How to mobilize younger clinicians, including the WMA’s junior doctors network

• AI in medicine, misinformation, and why “tools” still require human accountability

• Brain drain from developing countries, and what a fair global solution could look like

🎧 Press play for a rare, behind-the-scenes look at global medicine from the top, and the urgent message Dr. Philip keeps returning to: if we do not address the root cause, we are just managing collapse.

If this episode moves you, follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with one person who needs to hear that change is possible, and collective.

In this episode of wRight To The Root, Stephanie Wright is joined by Candice Sehoma, a Johannesburg-based access advisor with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), to unpack the global insulin access crisis and why a medication that has existed for over 100 years is still priced, patented, and distributed like a luxury. Candace shares how growing up in Alexandra, a historically marginalized township shaped by apartheid, fueled her commitment to structural change, not charity.

Together, we dig into what keeps insulin and diabetes medicines out of reach, including patent systems that protect monopolies, supply decisions that can trigger shortages, and a market that increasingly prioritizes high-profit GLP-1 drugs while basic diabetes care gets squeezed. We also talk about the real path forward, from policy reform and competition enforcement, to local and regional manufacturing, to grassroots organizing and treatment literacy so patients and communities can advocate with power and clarity.

If you have ever wondered why life-saving medicine can be marketed like candy and rationed like gold, this conversation is for you.

Listen, share, and take action, because patients united are harder to ignore.