The moment a seven-year-old boy sees clearly for the first time has been captured in a video by the charity that gave him surgery.
Surgeons from international charity Mercy Ships believe Mamadou, who lives in Sierra Leone, would have lost his sight entirely if he had not had his bilateral cataracts removed.
Running a hospital isn’t an easy task — it takes leaders carefully orchestrating a sea of moving parts to keep operations running smoothly. Matron Betsy Deen is that person at Connaught Hospital’s surgical department in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
During Mercy Ships’ 2023-24 field service in Freetown, several training opportunities were offered through Education, Training, and Advocacy (ETA) programs, which helped strengthen the ties between Mercy Ships and Sierra Leone’s healthcare network.
CONAKRY, GUINEA 26th September 2024: Guinea’s only public dental school celebrated the grand opening of its state-of-the-art training facility yesterday, which more than doubles capacity for dental students to learn, practice and treat patients while addressing the critical gap in accessing dental care.
Just days away from the opening of a new training facility at Guinea’s only dental school on September 25th that will more than double its capacity, Dr. David Ugai reflects on the transformative journey he and the Université Gamal Abdel Nasser of Conakry have embarked upon together, and the power of collaboration
In anticipation of welcoming her eighth child, a heavily pregnant Ernestine had to make a two-day journey to the nearest hospital in the district of Mandritsara, Madagascar. She sat in a canoe and then walked for miles, eager to see her baby, but her joy was short-lived. Ernestine lost her baby during labor and had to travel back home in pain, walking with a health condition she had never heard of – obstetric fistula. Caused by prolonged and obstructed labor, obstetric fistula is a hole between the genital tract and the urinary tract or rectum, resulting in the leaking of urine, feces, or both.
A headteacher who had to quit his job after a melon-size tumor grew on his face was greeted with open arms as he returned to the classroom after receiving transformational surgery from charity Mercy Ships.
Grandfather Auguste, 64, spent six long years away from his school in Senegal after the tumor forced to him to leave as it expanded from a spot to the large growth over 13 years.
For 51 years, Auguste lived a healthy, active life. He trained in the Senegalese military, moved north to the capital city of Dakar, raised a family, and found his passion as a schoolteacher.
Then, one day, Auguste noticed a spot on his face. Three years later, this spot started to grow. Over the next five years, it ballooned into a massive tumor protruding from his cheek and mouth.
FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE, SEPTEMBER 4, 2024: A 32-year-old police officer became the first patient to receive life-transforming surgery on board Mercy Ships’ hospital ship yesterday as the vessel returned to Sierra Leone to deliver a further 1,400-plus surgeries over the next 10 months.
A 14-year-old girl from Sierra Leone is free to follow her dreams of becoming a doctor after having a facial tumor removed by international health charity Mercy Ships.
Without the timely surgery, the tumor would likely have continued to grow to the point of causing airway obstructions, and ultimately, death by suffocation.
Born into a family of six children in Sierra Leone, 14-year-old Lucy loves science and wants to be a medical doctor. According to her mother, Isatu, “Lucy loves school. Even when she is not in school, she loves to study. After school, she eats and then goes and studies and does homework.”
At home, she is a joy to her family.