The idea for the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery came from Strada's belief that the basis for the freedom and quality of human beings with regard to dignity and rights, must also extend to the right to free treatment without discrimination: "If you think of medicine as a human right, then you cannot have some hospitals that offer sophisticated, very effective, hi-tech medicine," he says, "and then go to Africa and think, 'OK, here's a couple of vaccinations and a few shots'. Do we think that we human beings, we are all equal in rights and dignity, or not? We say, 'Yes, we are.'" – interview in The Observer, 2013.