Some people believe that newborns don’t communicate. Norge González Peña, a neonatal nurse at the Dr. Ernesto Guevara General Teaching Hospital in Las Tunas, knows that’s not true. For 31 years, he has been deciphering the language of the very youngest —a language not spoken with words, but with gestures, with cries that signal hunger or pain, and with glances that ask for calm. And he has done so not only in Cuba but also in Mozambique, where death was a daily visitor and life had to be defended tooth and nail from the very first minute.
Norge has no nurses in his family. There was neither legacy to follow nor a tradition to honor. Only a conviction that took root very early on: he wanted to care for others; he wanted to be close to those who need it most. He graduated as a general nurse and, by chance or fate, ended up in neonatology.
“When I graduated, Alicia Rodríguez was the head nurse, and she asked us to stay here because women always had to take maternity leave,” he recalls. That need within the department became his calling. And there he remains, 31 years later, having never wanted to move elsewhere.
Dealing with such tiny babies was a gradual process. “At first it was difficult; I really struggled,” he confesses. But over time, he learned to read what their eyes and cries reveal. “The cry of pain isn’t the same as when they’re hungry. You get to know them over time,” she explains. That ability to listen to the silence is what distinguishes a great neonatal nurse from an ordinary one, and Norge has perfected it through days and nights spent by the incubators.
One of the moments that left the deepest impression on her was when a baby with a tongue malformation had to undergo surgery performed by a specialist from Matanzas. They fitted him with a button—a small device to keep the tongue in place—something they’d never seen before in Las Tunas. The child survived, and today, now and then, the father runs into Norge in the hallways and tells him that his son is doing well. “That’s what I like best,” he says with a smile, “seeing the children pull through.”
But it’s not all joy. The hardest part, he admits, is when the battle is lost. “When you fight for a baby like that for so long and then, unfortunately, you just can’t save him… Facing the mother and breaking the news to her… that’s horrible,” he confesses, his voice breaking.
Because in the Neonatal Unit, they don’t just care for the little ones—they also embrace the families’ grief.
Norge has seen desperate mothers, fathers who become the sole source of support while the mother is in another room undergoing surgery, and he has learned that love and support are just as important as any medication.
What makes him feel most proud, however, is his ability to insert IVs into babies. “Inserting IVs into the veins of infants and performing other procedures is sometimes easier than with a 4- or 5-year-old, because they don’t resist,” he explains modestly. But those familiar with the craft know that inserting an IV into an arm that barely fits in the palm of your hand is almost a work of art—a skill achieved only through years of practice and infinite patience.
Norge served on an international mission in Mozambique, in the city of Matola, 20 minutes from the capital. There, she worked for three years at a provincial hospital, and the contrast with Cuba was stark.
“Sometimes there were 30 or 40 deaths in a single month—here, we don’t even reach 20 in a year,” she recalls. She saw mothers who, exhausted, would fall asleep on top of their children and unintentionally suffocate them. She saw children who were fine one day and gone the next. That harsh and transformative experience taught her to value even more what they have in Las Tunas: a service that prioritizes newborns, provides the necessary supplies, and protects its staff.
Today, Norge has three children and three grandchildren. Two of them—his youngest son and a granddaughter—have been hospitalized in the very department where he works. And although it may sound contradictory, that has made him more compassionate. Because he understands how a family feels when they leave their baby in the hands of strangers. He knows that desperation can cloud judgment, which is why he insists on letting parents in, on explaining things to them, and on reassuring them. “We let the parents come in—sometimes it’s just the mother, but when the baby is in critical condition, and the mother isn’t feeling well either, the father comes in,” he says with conviction.
With more than three decades of experience, Norge González Peña is one of the few male neonatal nurses in the province. He doesn’t mind being in the minority; what a matter to him is that every baby who arrives has a chance. He knows that the department prioritizes his unit with resources, that there’s no shortage of syringes or medications, and that the hospital protects the Neonatal Unit for what it is: one of the most critical areas of the healthcare system.
And when asked what message he would leave, Norge doesn’t look for grand words. He prefers to point to his own life as an example: 31 years of dedication, countless lives saved, and a few losses that still hurt. Because deep down, nurses like him bear witness to human fragility and strength, and every day they choose to stay, choosing tenderness as their tool and silence as their language.
As this interview draws to a close, Norge looks toward the cubicle where very low-birth-weight infants rest. “Here, we’ll always come to work and do everything for those babies until the very end,” he says. And in that phrase —so simple and yet so profound— lies the essence of a man who found his place in the world amid incubators and tiny heartbeats, proving that greatness is not measured by size, but by the ability to care for the smallest with the biggest heart.
