Meet the CEO of East Africa's largest Cancer Hospital- Dr Catherine Nyongesa

Meet the CEO of East Africa's largest Cancer Hospital- Dr Catherine Nyongesa

Compiled by: Suleiman Ndoro Jnr (Dr Audi)

Catherine Naliaka Nyongesa was born in 1970 in a family of 9. She was the eldest daughter and knew that she always wanted to be a doctor. The first day her father took her to secondary school, she told him she wanted to be a doctor. And when she completed her secondary education, her father had to sell his ancestral land for her to join the University of Nairobi to pursue Medicine and Surgery.

When she completed her internship at Kakamega Provincial General Hospital in 1996, she thought of doing pediatrics but scholarships were hard to come by. A former lecturer advised her to try her luck at the Kenyatta National Hospital Cancer Centre. At that time, there were just two men and no woman at the cancer center.

For five years, Dr. Nyongesa worked at the cancer center as a junior medical officer hoping to get a scholarship one day. Luckily, she got an International Atomic Energy Agency scholarship to study in Johannesburg, South Africa for a Master’s degree in oncology. There, she was enrolled in a three-year residency program to study to become a radiation oncologist. She then graduated in 2005 with a Master of Medicine (MMed) degree, in Radiation Oncology.

After completing her specialized training in South Africa, she returned to Kenya and was hired as a consultant radiation oncologist at Kenyatta National Hospital. This was then she fully internalized the sad reality that there weren’t enough cancer treatment machines and specialists in Kenya.

“My heart was in great pain to see cancer patients waiting for up to two years to access treatment especially radiotherapy. The breaking point was when a patient brought me her booking card and asked me, ‘Doctor, I cannot wait this long in pain and suffering, please help’, she says.

She convinced her husband to support her set up a cancer center. In 2010, Nyongesa and her husband, a practicing pharmacist in the Houston-area, Texas, United States, started Texas Cancer Centre Nairobi.

It was however not that easy. She didn’t have the money. All she had was a desk, her white coat, a stethoscope, and basic medical equipment. She rented a three-bedroom residential house on Kabarnet Road next to Kibera which acted as the cancer clinic.

 However, the neighbors in the estate were not comfortable with the clinic around. They used to constantly pester them to move to other premises. Sometimes, the patients would be shooed away.

Besides that, they were receiving so many patients that space wasn’t enough. Luckily, they found a five-bedroom maisonette in Hurlingham and moved in. Dr. Nyongesa always had a vision of a world-class cancer facility. In 2012, she shared with a friend her vision who talked to her about getting a loan from the bank.

She took that advice, did an evaluation of her vision and visited the bank. Fortunately, the loan was approved. Dr. Nyongesa used the first loan which was a mortgage to buy the land the facility is built on today. She raised 6 percent by selling her house and pooled together all the savings she had.

That was not the end. It was just the beginning of another hurdle which was the construction of the facility. Dr. Nyongesa had no money to build anything, and she was paying a mortgage while still renting at Hurlingham. The financial strain was so extreme that she almost gave up on her dream.

“Someone said when you get to a point where you want to give up, think about the reasons you started. And so the images of long queues of patients needing treatment from one radiotherapy machine jolted me. Plus, my younger sister got cancer when I was in medical school in 1994. As a family, we struggled to get her treatment. She was part of the reason I specialized in oncology. I couldn’t give up.” She said during an interview with the Eve Woman Magazine.

She went back to the bank and asked for more money to build phase one. Surprisingly, the bank gave her the money. She built the phase and when it was complete, they moved with the patients there. When she needed to construct inpatient wards of the facility, she went back to the bank and got more loans to finance it.

With assistance from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Nairobi center acquired and installed a radiotherapy machine, set up a diagnostic laboratory and acquired x-ray machines and ultrasound equipment. As of March 2015, the Centre had over 70 full-time staff, handling over 150 outpatients daily, and offered accommodation at a reasonable fee to out-of-town outpatients. As of July 2017, the Texas Cancer Centre had expanded to a total of four locations in Nairobi and Eldoret.

Today Texas Cancer Centre is the largest private cancer hospital in East Africa and treats over 250 patients per day who are receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Dr. Nyongesa is the first woman radiation oncologist in Kenya. She serves as Chairwoman of the Kenya Society of Hematology and Oncology (KESHO). She is the clinical coordinator at the Cancer Treatment Centre of Kenyatta National Hospital. In December 2018, she won The latest Ernst & Young (EY) Entrepreneur of the Year Award beating out more than 250 nominees in Eastern Africa.