Mercy Ships

OK, to all of you that I told I was going to Africa with Mercy Corp.  It’s not true.  Mercy Corp is an American NGO based out of Portland.  I’m here with Mercy Ships.  Completely different organizations, but with basically the same mission.  Anyway, a little information about Mercy Ships.   I won’t go into a lot of detail because it’s so easy to google Mercy Ships and find out more information than anyone would possibly want to know, but the short story--  In 1978, Don Stevens had a dream of outfitting a ship as a hospital and taking her into poorer world ports to provide surgical and medical care. He borrowed one million dollars and bought his first ship, the Anastasis which only retired in 2007. The year she retired, he purchased the African Mercy.  Anita worked on that ship for 8 weeks in 2007.  Don Stephens is still the guiding force behind Mercy Ships, but it is now mainly in western Africa.  Over the years Mercy Ships have changed and evolved, but the mission has remained the same- to provide quality health care for the poorest of the world’s populations.

Everywhere we go, people love us! If we're wearing our scrubs and name tags, we're recognized on the streets and the hassling is much less.  In fact, men (who usually do the harassing) will tell other guys to leave us alone--that  we're with Mercy Ships.   In the market today,Anita and I were buying  new coffee mugs for our break room.  When the store owner realized that we were with Mercy Ships, he had his staff give us 5 dalasi back! ( 5 dalasi equal 15 cents, but this is a country where we bargain over that 15 cents--in fact, locals can eat dinner for that!)  He offered us anything else we buy at a special discount for Mercy Ship volunteers. He expressed what many people tell us daily, “thank you so much for coming to Africa to help us.  Mercy Ship is very good.”  It is so common for someone to thank us or recognize their appreciation for Mercy Ship-- it's so satisfying to be affiliated with this type of organization.  

This particular mission is run by Tony and Ann Giles, a doctor from England and his nurse wife.  They were on the Mercy Ship several years ago and it’s morphed into Tony and Ann doing these extra missions at local hospitals like RVTH here in Banjul.  With the support of Mercy Ships, Tony and Ann plan the entire project and recruit the medical, nursing and ancillary staff.  They also set up patient screening to get patients--this project is only cleft lips and palates.  Many people show up that are not appropriate candidates. Tony also appears on local TV, newspaper and radio ads to find patients.  Communication is so difficult in the entire country, but especially in the outlying villages which is where most of our patients have come from this time.  There are Christian missions and health care clinic dotted all over the country and Tony and Ann stay at these and can use the missionaries as a resource for patients, too.  In places where there are no missions, they talk to the village chiefs who are usually cooperative and provide help, food, and generally appreciate the help.  .  Bjorn and Anne Marie, the Norwegian MD and his wife, told us about going upriver with Tony and Ann to find patients.   In one place the village chief offered to house and feed them for the night--they slept on the bare, dirt floor in a hut—no blankets or pillows, just sleeping mats . The night was so dark that they couldn’t see anything, and they tried to go to sleep to the sound of rustling, scurrying and scratching!  It was a very long sleepless night!

Our living conditions are luxurious by comparison and I think I'll take advantage of that to sign off for the night.  It's been a very long first week.  Thirteen patients have repaired cleft lips, one 75 year old who is one of the important chief's relative now has a semi-normal looking lip after having a large non-malignant tumor removed and antibiotics for the week, and one, a repaired cleft palate (she was Nassim that the cautery quit working in the middle of her surgery and she bled.  Well, the cautery still isn't working and a part is coming in from England tomorrow, so the rest of the cleft palates have been put off until next week)   A very different week than I would have had at home!