Bearing witness: When hospital work becomes a test of faith
When Tom Catena moved to Sudan in 2008 to work as a surgeon in a remote, rebel-held territory, he first needed to earn the community’s trust. He learned basic Arabic, treated the local leader at his hospital, and stuck around during government airstrikes to treat the wounded.
A decade into the job, Dr. Catena, who is also a Catholic missionary, leads the Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan. Indiscriminate bombing by the Khartoum government has terrorized the region’s Nuba people and blocked their access to aid.
Catena’s 435-bed facility is the only referral hospital in a region of roughly a million Sudanese. The hospital operates on a $750,000 budget, of which around half goes to salaries
