Hamda Qotba

Dr Hamda Abdullah Qotba is a senior consultant in public health at Primary Health Care Corporation and Chair of the Children’s Cultural Centre.

She was born in Doha in 1970, the youngest of seven children in a Qatari family. After her father died when she was seven, her eldest brother, Dr Mohammed Qotba, became both a father figure and an intellectual example. Their shared interests strengthened an already close relationship. He often took her to the Qatar National Library, which their father had helped establish and where he had served as head of the bookbinding department.

Her mother, widowed at no more than thirty-three, returned to work and ensured that all seven children received the best education she could provide. She treated sons and daughters equally, fostering independence and confidence in the girls and respect for women among the boys. Her grandmother reinforced the family’s religious and moral principles by making sure that her grandchildren observed their prayers on time.

She distinguished herself from the beginning of school, ranking first in her class and receiving a silver pen with blue ink as a prize. Literature initially drew her towards poetry and the idea of a doctorate in Arabic literature. Her Arabic teacher, Maryam Fakhro, made a lasting impression when she devoted her breaks to helping her catch up after an appendectomy.

By middle and secondary school, her ambitions had broadened. While computers were still beginning to spread, she saved for a computing course in her first year of secondary school and considered engineering or programming. Her grades secured a scholarship in medicine rather than computing. Although her mother encouraged study in the West, she chose Bahrain because its environment resembled Qatar and kept her close to home.

In 1988, she entered the medical programme at Gulf University in Bahrain. Frequent family visits made seven years of study a rewarding experience among diligent young women who later assumed important roles in Qatar. Professors of modest means who had struggled to build distinguished academic careers became examples to her, particularly Dr Maryam, the first Bahraini physician to study genetics. Her preference for self-directed learning, competitive spirit and quick thinking were evident even when she did not attend every lecture. On returning, she was honoured among scholarship students at Qatar University and met Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, whose encouragement guided later academic and professional decisions.

Her professional career began at Hamad Medical Corporation in 1996. Training with consultants in internal medicine, surgery and other major specialties helped her identify the field in which she would make her contribution.

A difficult exchange with a colleague prompted her to ask which medical specialties Qatar most needed. When a department head identified a shortage in epidemiology, a field she had enjoyed at university because of its numerical dimension, she approached Dr Ghalia Al Thani, Head of Continuing Education, about specialising in public health and community medicine. Administrative complications initially delayed the scholarship, but a later meeting in a hospital corridor brought confirmation that she had been registered, making her the first Qatari woman to study the specialty.

She travelled to Saudi Arabia in 1998 to pursue the Arab Board in community medicine as the only Qatari woman among Saudi colleagues. Selected as one of ten distinguished women for an intensive six-month programme in Jeddah, she trained in personal development and neurolinguistic programming and qualified as a certified trainer in 2000. The period culminated in successful examinations and a distinguished thesis before her return to Qatar in 2001. She presented the thesis to Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, who encouraged her to continue her studies abroad at Weill Cornell.

In 2004, she travelled to Britain to train at a World Health Organization centre. She became a member of the Royal College of Public Health in 2007—the only Qatari woman to hold the membership at the time—and received its fellowship two years later. By opening that route, she encouraged colleagues in the same specialty to pursue it as well.

Across her career, she supervised seven departments, moving roughly every two years to broaden her understanding and apply her skills in different settings. She helped establish the Nutrition Department at the Ministry of Health and spent her final five professional years in the Research Department at Primary Health Care Corporation. She also taught epidemiology on the Arab Board programme for an extended period and supervised doctoral research.

Her international work included serving as the World Health Organization liaison officer for five diseases and leading the World Health Survey team responsible for Qatar’s largest society-wide health survey. Its results informed the country’s National Health Strategy. She also contributed to the Ministry of Environment’s strategy, wrote a strategy for the Supreme Council for Family Affairs and became the first Qatari and Arab woman to sit on the council of the tobacco-control Conference of the Parties, chair the region and represent it on the board of trustees.

The family around her supplied both example and support. Her brothers Mohammed and Khaled advocated for women and shared a strong humanitarian outlook; Khaled became an appellate judge known for social intelligence and sound judgement. Her sister Aisha worked as a consultant and sign-language translation specialist, while Maryam became a librarian. Abdul Rahman, the only brother not to attend university, built a successful career in commerce.

Determination sometimes placed her in direct conflict with people who tried to circumvent rights or resisted her strategy. Repeated changes in management, policy and direction created pressure, and she responded either by bringing the situation under control or moving to another post where she could continue contributing. Constant travel for study and work also exposed her to very different outlooks and, at times, racist treatment, but she established her competence in each setting.

The death of Dr Mohammed Qotba deprived her of the brother who had prepared the way, advised her and supported every stage of her life. Retirement was another difficult decision and occupied her thoughts for more than four years. In 2022, she stepped away from work so that she could spend more time with her mother after years in which medical duties and travel had limited both family time and social life. She then began deliberately rebuilding that part of her life.