Pizza and Politics - How to Run a Hospital in a Warzone: Localizing Human Action

Dr. Tom Catena, Chair of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, is an American surgeon and missionary, founder of the Mother Mercy Hospital in Sudan’s war-ravaged Nuba mountains. Having set up the Mother of Mercy Catholic Hospital in 2008, he is the only surgeon permanently based in a region the size of Austria and regularly treats up to 400 people a day.

First a recipient of the $1.1 million Aurora Prize for his humanitarian work and now Chair of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, Dr Catena will address the challenges of running a hospital in a war-torn region and speak of the importance of empowering people on the ground to make decisions about the allocation of aid – as Aurora does through the Aurora Prize, allowing its recipients to allocate $1 million to organizations of their choice.