Abstract
Mauro Nunes is no ordinary nurse. For the last 25 years, he has worked with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and Africare in Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Sudan, Indonesia, Haiti and Honduras. That makes him quite a globetrotter and a remarkable role model for young nurses.
As a child, Mauro was inspired to become a nurse when the person who nominated him for this award lodged with his family while she was doing her nursing course. He followed her into the profession despite misgivings from family and friends. On gaining his qualification, he moved to Urucurituba, Iranduba and Manacapuru, three very rural areas in the Amazon region in northern Brazil. After some years there, he began training and supervising 200 community health workers (CHWs) in over 30 municipalities in case management, health education and prevention of cholera in the Amazon region for the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Brazilian Navy, and it was when he joined MSF. This was the start of the work he would go on to do for many years with the organization, first working in Niassa Province in Mozambique and then Malange, Angola. After that while working in Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, his main concerns were early warning systems for infectious diseases such as measles, yellow fever, meningitis and cholera. The work in Nigeria had granted him a Chieftancy title from one of the traditional kings of Lagos, Oba Haruna Okikiola III, as Ba’Wosan of Apapa and Imoorè (Father of the Community Health Care). He set up projects to help people living and professionals working in dangerous places in many Brazilian shantytowns; cared for homeless people; started TB clinics and family health programmes; and was always looking to help the most deprived people. The list of projects he run is long and diverse, showing a real talent for spotting the most urgent needs to address. Since 2007 and until today, he also works as a nurse in the surgical ward at the Federal Hospital dos Servidores do Estado.
In 2008, Mauro was the health coordinator of the MSF mission in Khartoum, Sudan. In the same year, he became the training supervisor of the Brazilian Medical unit of MSF. In 2001 and 2010, he coordinated, respectively, the MSF Emergency Project for the victims of the floods in Jequitinhonha Valley and Alagoas State in Brazil. In 2011, he was the health coordinator of the cholera intervention in Port au Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake there. Later, he coordinated projects for the Street Population and Commercial Sex Workers in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and also the Assessment mission of illegal Haitian migrants in the Amazon region, all for MSF. In the same year, he found time to facilitate workshops for health and social workers working with street populations in São Paulo, Recife, Maceió, Porto Alegre Goiânia, Salvador, Natal and Curitiba for the Ministry of Health. In 2012, Mauro was the health consultant for Africare USA in Luanda, Angola, to identify new areas of intervention. Last year, he was the coordinator of the Exploratory Missions in Angola and Mozambique for MSF to identify nutritional and health situations and cholera outbreaks.
The implementation of human rights and the alleviation of human suffering are always foremost in humanitarian actions, and Mauro is totally devoted to his duties and responsibilities. He has always considered access to healthcare as a human right, making it his top priority. One of his nominators described working with him in Angola in places where government armed forces (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola – MPLA) were in control and in others that were under local guerrilla (UNITA) control. Mauro had to ensure that the people had access to medical care and adequate treatment by negotiating constant safe passage of drugs and medical supplies from one side to the other. The lack of trust on both sides generated huge tensions, but Mauro always managed to get the supplies delivered on time and without compromising the mission of MSF nor the shipments themselves. It is clear that when he talks to student nurses in particular, he is an inspiration to them personally and a great example of what nursing as a profession is achieving.