Why Nuba?
I’ve been to the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan three times over the past 15 years, staying a month or so each time and working with Dr. Tom Catena, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.
Dr. Catena is world-famous for his humanitarian work serving the Nuba people in a region where there is no other access to medical care. Born in New York, Dr. Catena served in the US Navy and boarded in Family Medicine. After completing his service, Tom immediately moved to Kenya and has lived and worked in Africa ever since.
In 2008, Dr. Catena opened Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains, effectively becoming the first and only physician for hundreds of miles. He single-handedly created and manned the hospital’s inpatient, outpatient and surgical wards.
When I first traveled there, in 2008, the hospital had just opened. Tom began his day around 4 am, eating a quick breakfast and going for a brisk walk in the early morning dark. After that, he rounded on a hundred or more inpatient adult and pediatric cases, many with diseases and infirmities no longer seen in the developed world: rabies, tetanus, leprosy, tuberculosis, advanced cancers, even dental issues. Following inpatient rounds, he moved to the operating room, where he used surgical skills he had acquired in Kenya to remove goiters, perform bowel resections, and amputate limbs. Several hours later, he moved to the outpatient clinic, where sometimes 200 people or more waited patiently in the hospital’s courtyard to have their UTIs, pneumonia, and countless other issues evaluated and treated.
I couldn’t believe this was Tom’s daily routine, seven days a week, all year long.
Other physicians and specialists, like myself, did come and go to help Tom, but ultimately he was the one constant: the physician, administrator, logistician, and maintenance man. His evenings were spent dealing with staff issues, rationing generator fuel, and troubleshooting the hospital’s one satellite internet linkup, among many other responsibilities.
Things took a turn for the worse in 2011, when Sudan split into two countries and the government in Khartoum decided to force the Nuba Mountains to stay with the north through a vicious bombing campaign carried out on the Nuba people. Tom suddenly became a war surgeon, treating patients with severed limbs, head trauma and other ghastly injuries inflicted by barrel bombs dropped by the Sudanese army onto peaceful men, women and children.
Dr. Catena is easily searchable on the internet, and I recommend you look him up. He is the recipient of the 2017 Aurora Humanitarian award, the proceeds of which he donated to other humantiarian causes. There is also a film about him, titled The Heart of Nuba, which you can learn about here.
I worked with Tom at the beginning and also subsequently during the war years, my one month there being the scariest of my life. Hiding in a hole in the ground while a bomber drones overhead is pure terror. Fortunately, the war in Nuba is over (for now) and Dr. Catena is happily married to a Nuba nurse, and they are raising two children near the hospital he almost never leaves.
Tom’s example has guided my entire medical career and my philosophy when it comes to providing healthcare. The majority of my work in the US has been with underserved communities and FQHCs. And despite the wonderful, caring organizations I’ve worked for, I’ve witnessed the relentless monopolization of healthcare by huge corporations whose “patient first” branding masks one goal: profit.
I opened Nuba Health to see patients on my terms and provide the kind of care I believe people need: relationship-based, transparent, simple and affordable. An alternative to marketed medicine. I’m not brave enough to move my family to central Sudan and devote the rest of my life to healing the neediest of us. But Dr. Tom Catena’s example is at the heart of everything I do.
