HEALTH SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2015 In Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, lone US doctor cares for thousands CAIRO: In his years as the only qualified aerial bombing from Khartoum’s war- surgeon living in Sudan’s conflict-hit Nuba planes, with staff and patients running to Mountains, American Tom Catena has nearby trenches at the sound of jets. “It’s treated more patients than he can the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard,” remember-but some cases are etched in Catena said. his memory. Khartoum denies it bombs civilian tar- As medical director, doctor and sur- gets, but in January, the Belgian branch of geon at the Mother of Mercy Catholic Doctors Without Borders (MSF) withdrew Hospital, Catena has treated countless its staff from the Nuba Mountains after it patients with horrific wounds from the said warplanes hit a hospital it operated conflict that has ravaged the rebel-con- the area. trolled area since 2011. “The ones that are crushing blows-and Malaria season, HIV testing they really are crushing-are not just the During the rainy season, which lasts war cases,” Catena told AFP via Skype, his from June until November, roads in the voice weary after a long day’s work. region are rendered impassable, largely Last year, a measles epidemic swept halting fighting. the region and the hospital treated 1,400 The flow of civilians wounded by cases, he said. Some 30 people died. bombings and rebels hurt in fighting “You’d come on a Sunday morning slows, but Catena still has plenty of work. and find a kid who’s dying from measles, “We’re not idle during this time, this is gasping for breath, and the mother is just malaria season,” Catena said. screaming, crying and rolling on the He has also started testing in nearby ground,” Catena said. villages for HIV-the Nuba Mountains has “It can be totally demoralising and you seen a slow rise in the number of cases just want to chuck it in.” But, brought to since 2008. This year the hospital has the Nuba Mountains by his Catholic faith, diagnosed 25-30 cases. Catena says he is determined to carry on After seeing the effects of HIV in until a doctor from the area can take his GIDEL: American doctor Tom Catena (C) performs a surgical operation at the Mother of Mercy Kenya, Catena is determined to prevent place. A lean, shaven-headed 51-year-old Hospital in Gidel, near Kauda in the Nuba Mountains. —AFP the virus from gaining a foothold in the in photographs, Catena carries out all region, and has helped launch an aware- major surgery, delivers babies and gives But preferring practical work to near the border with South Sudan-regard- People’s Liberation Movement-North ness campaign and testing. check-ups at the 345-bed facility, which preaching, he studied medicine at gradu- less of religion and free of charge. rebelled against the Khartoum govern- With the few moments he has free, he says serves as many as 750,000 people ate school on a US Navy scholarship and Arriving in 2008, Catena’s first impres- ment, complaining the region was being Catena reads-he has just finished living in the area. headed for a two-year stint in Kenya after sions were of the searing heat and that he marginalised. Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”- There is just one other small hospital, qualifying. was among “people traumatised by years Overnight, wounded civilians, soldiers and plans for the hospital’s future. “The run by a German NGO and staffed by a In 2007, he agreed to travel to work at and years of neglect and civil war”. and rebels streamed into the hospital and goal for all of us here is the transition for handful of expatriates and local staff, in Mother of Mercy, set up by the then-bish- The religiously and linguistically most of Catena’s expatriate colleagues having all the Nuba run the show.” the region. op of Obeid, Macram Gassis, with money diverse Nuba peoples suffered badly dur- left. The hospital is funding two Nuba from church groups and private donors, ing the conflict between Khartoum’s His Nuba colleagues replaced them, through medical schools in Kenya and ‘Traumatised by conflict’ who still fund it. Arab-dominated governments and south- quickly learning nursing and emergency Uganda, but Catena says his departure is Born in the small town of Amsterdam, It aimed to treat all residents of the ern rebels in Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war. trauma care on the job, and now form the still far off. “We are feverishly now trying New York, Catena was always interested underdeveloped Nuba Mountains-which The Nuba Mountains plunged back core of the hospital’s team. to get people trained, but it will be at least in missionary work. lies in the restless South Kordofan region into war in 2011, when the Sudan The hospital has also faced occasional five years.” —AFP.