Helena Cristina Moreira
Lovingly known as “Dona Lena”
23 July 1946 — 11 February 2022 · aged 75
USP public-health professor who brought paediatric care to the edges of São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil Born in Caruaru, Pernambuco Resting at Cemitério do Morumbi, São PauloAbout Helena
Professor Helena Moreira kept a cat named Pasteur, a Palmeiras scarf in her desk drawer and, taped inside the door of her cabinet at the Faculdade de Saúde Pública, a child's crayon drawing of a stethoscope captioned “To Dona Lena, who listened.”
Born in Caruaru, Pernambuco, in 1946, the daughter of a market trader and a seamstress, Helena studied medicine at the Universidade de São Paulo, graduating in 1970 as one of eleven women in a class of one hundred and twenty. She trained in paediatrics at the Hospital das Clínicas, earned her doctorate in public health at USP in 1982, and joined the university's School of Public Health in 1976, where she taught for almost forty years.
Her research followed children: malnourished babies in the Northeast in the seventies, then the outskirts of São Paulo in the eighties and nineties, where she showed that a nurse on a bicycle and a mother with a growth chart could achieve more than any hospital ward. Her findings helped shape neighborhood clinics across the city. For decades she volunteered with the Pastoral da Criança, the Catholic child-health ministry, and trained thousands of volunteer mothers to weigh babies and recognize danger signs.
She was a wonderfully terrible cook who made feijoada every Saturday for friends, students and the occasional stray colleague, and a devoted Palmeiras supporter whose language in the stands would not have survived a textbook. She married Henrique Moreira, a civil engineer, in 1969, and together they raised two children in a house in Pinheiros with more books than shelves.
Professor Moreira died on 11 February 2022, aged seventy-five, in São Paulo after a short illness. She is survived by Henrique, her daughter Beatriz, her son Rafael, three grandchildren and her sister Josefa, and by thousands of mothers and children whose names she knew.
“A neighborhood clinic is only as good as the last mother who felt listened to.”
- Faith
- Catholic
- Place of birth
- Caruaru, Pernambuco
- Resting place
- Cemitério do Morumbi, São Paulo
- Passed away
- 11 February 2022, São Paulo
Memorial Mass (Missa de Sétimo Dia)
Friday, 18 February 2022 at 11:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
Doctor of Medicine
Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Medicina1965 – 1970 · São Paulo
One of eleven women in a class of one hundred and twenty.
Paediatrics Residency
Hospital das Clínicas, USP1971 – 1973 · São Paulo
Trained on the wards of Brazil's largest teaching hospital.
Professor of Public Health
Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Saúde Pública1976 – 2015 · São Paulo
Nearly forty years of teaching, research and community clinic design.
Ph.D. in Public Health
Universidade de São Paulo1978 – 1982 · São Paulo
Thesis on child nutrition on the outskirts of São Paulo.
Volunteer Trainer
Pastoral da Criança1985 – 2020 · São Paulo
Trained thousands of volunteer mothers in basic child health.
Professora Emérita
Universidade de São Paulo2016 · São Paulo
The university's honorary title for retired professors of exceptional merit.
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Family & connections
Helena is survived by
- Henrique Moreira· Spouse
- Beatriz Moreira Lemos· Daughter
- Rafael Moreira· Son
- Josefa Albuquerque· Sister
- 3 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Helena.
Knew Helena? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- DW
Collaborator, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Helena hosted me in São Paulo in 1994 and drove me to a clinic in Capão Redondo in a car with no air conditioning and a dashboard full of children's drawings. She showed me what public health looks like when it is done with love. I have tried to do the same ever since.
- LA
Former student
I failed her exam in 2004 and she asked me to come to her office. I expected a lecture. She gave me a slice of cake and a book about nutrition in Pernambuco, and said, “Read this on the bus.” I passed the retake. I teach epidemiology today.
- MS
Pastoral da Criança volunteer, Capão Redondo
Dona Lena taught me to weigh a baby with a hanging scale and a hand-sewn cloth sling in 1989. I have weighed more than four thousand children since. Every one of them, to me, is weighed in her honor. Que Deus a guarde.
- PB
Colleague at the Faculdade de Saúde Pública
Helena arrived at faculty meetings with a thermos of cafezinho and a pile of data nobody else had thought to collect. She changed public policy not by arguing, but by showing us the children. We could not look away. Neither could the ministers.
- JA
Sister, Caruaru
Lena was the girl who taught the neighborhood children to read on our front steps. She was thirteen. She grew into the woman who taught a city. When she left for São Paulo she said, “I'll come back with something useful.” She did, and she always did.
- DF
Former student, now a paediatrician
Dona Lena sent us into the periphery with a scale, a tape measure and one instruction: “Listen to the mother first.” I have examined thousands of children since, and the most valuable instrument in my bag is still a quiet five minutes with whoever carried them in.
