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News, Press releaseANTANARIVO, MADAGASCAR, SEPTEMBER 25, 2023 – Recent meetings between the Ministry of Health and Mercy Ships have furthered planning for the hospital ship Africa Mercy® to return to Madagascar in early February. Initially, Mercy Ships plans to dock the 16, 572 GT Africa Mercy in the port of Toamasina. During the field service, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the ship’s medical professionals, and teams will aim to provide more than 1,150 free specialized surgeries as well as targeted training for healthcare professionals.
Mercy Ships has already embarked on the beginning of a 5-year country engagement plan that further strengthens the partnership between Mercy Ships and the people of Madagascar, with the development of local partners, and completion of an initial programmatic assessment.

Meet Emmanuel, the First Patient of the Sierra Leone Field Service
BlogOn Tuesday, September 12, Emmanuel was brought into one of the operating rooms of the Global Mercy™, where he became the very first patient to receive surgery during the field service in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
The significance of this moment was not lost on him. Emmanuel, who had just celebrated his 43rd birthday a few days earlier, felt that the timing had turned his birthday month into something extraordinary. “It is a double portion of blessings,” he celebrated.
A tumor on his neck began as a minor concern, a flicker of worry that he hoped would fade away with time.

Father is first patient in Sierra Leone to receive life transforming surgery on board Mercy Ship
Press releaseFREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE, SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 – A 43-year-old man who feared he would have to live with a tumor on his face for life was the first patient to receive a life-changing surgery on board the world’s largest civilian hospital ship, the Global Mercy™ yesterday (Sept 12th) in the Port of Freetown, following the ship’s recent arrival.
Father-of-one Emmanuel thought the small lump in his mouth was just toothache or a cold sore when he discovered it four years ago. But it continued to grow bigger on his lower face and medication did not stop it continuing to enlarge.
He had resigned himself to living with the tumor forever but he constantly worried that it would burst and complicate his health.
Yesterday, the Sierra Leonean who lives in Freetown became the first person to receive one of more than 2,350 surgeries planned for the Global Mercy’s 10-month stay in Freetown.

Passing on the Healing: Hawa’s Story of Life-Saving Surgery
BlogThere was much excitement on board the Global Mercy™ recently as a young woman named Hawa climbed up the gangway.
Hawa, an aspiring nurse from Sierra Leone, had never set foot on this brand-new hospital ship. But she has walked this swaying path over the water before.
Hawa boarded the first Mercy Ship, the Anastasis, as a small child, when a tumor was slowly encroaching on her ability to eat and breathe. It was there that her life was saved, and a new dream was born. This year, Hawa’s journey to hope and healing came full circle as she reunited with Mercy Ships once more.

The Global Mercy™ arrives in Freetown, Sierra Leone to Bring Safe Surgery and Education
Blog, NewsOn August 22, a long-awaited day of hope arrived as the Global Mercy™ sailed into the port of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
It was a moment more than 30 years in the making. The start of this field service marks the next chapter in a three-decade partnership between Mercy Ships and Sierra Leone, meaning the floating hospital ship’s arrival wasn’t a greeting – it was a homecoming.

Sierra Leoneans Welcome Newest Mercy Ship, the Global Mercy™ into Port of Freetown
Press releaseFREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE, 22 AUGUST 2023 - In response to an invitation from H.E. President Julius Maada Bio, Freetown has welcomed a Mercy Ships hospital ship, marking the sixth instance of the collaboration between Mercy Ships and the government of Sierra Leone. This time it is the Global Mercy™ the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, which has docked at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay. For the next ten months, Mercy Ships’ newest state-of-the-art hospital ship will partner with the Ministry of Health to provide free specialized surgeries to Sierra Leoneans and targeted training for healthcare professionals until June 2024.
Mercy Ships’ programme strategy has been carefully aligned with the country’s current strategic healthcare plan.

Sierra Leonean Mercy Ships Volunteers Look Forward to Bringing the Global Mercy® Home
BlogIbrahim Bangura was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and he has family in the northern district of Kambia.
Even as a native Sierra Leonean, though, he didn’t grasp the depth of medical need in his own nation until he joined Mercy Ships as a national crewmember.
“I live in the country, but I’ve never seen people with such kind of sicknesses, with huge tumors,” he said. “People with cleft lips. … I've never seen that in my life.”
Medical conditions often develop more severely in rural areas, where people have trouble getting to a hospital. In 2011, as Ibrahim began working with the Africa Mercy® in Freetown, he saw patients who had journeyed from all over the country to be treated. It was like nothing he had ever experienced.
“This is where my journey started,” he said. “I got inspired.”

Sierra Leonean Mercy Ships Volunteer Gets Ready to Welcome the Global Mercy
BlogWhen David Kpakiwa thinks about the surgical need in his home country of Sierra Leone, he gets emotional.
It’s not just because he cares about his countrymen and women.
It’s because for him, this issue hits close to home.
“When I was a kid, my mom got sick and she needed surgery,” he said. “But in our community, they could not provide that.”
David’s mother would have to leave their home in the Kono District to find treatment, but the travel was too expensive. David was young, but he carried a lot of responsibility as a provider for his family. He began supporting his family at the age of 8, working long hours on a farm to bring home money to his mother.
“I spent a lot of time looking at my mom’s suffering,” he said.
Although she was finally able to get the help she needed, David never forgot the experience.
“The memories are there,” he said. “They’re fresh.”
David’s family is not unique among Sierra Leoneans. There are fewer than three surgeons for every 100,000 people in the population, but those surgeons are distributed unequally across the country. That means surgical care is inaccessible to the majority of people. Estimates of the unmet surgical need in Sierra Leone reach as high as 91%.
David’s mother was just one of those people who couldn’t access the care she desperately needed – leaving a lasting impact on those who loved her most. That’s why now, years later, as David prepares the way for the Global Mercy™ to arrive in Freetown, Sierra Leone, he takes his job personally.

The Next Chapter: Igniting Hope and Multiplying Impact in Sierra Leone
BlogGrowing up on board the floating hospitals of Mercy Ships, Dr. Sandra Lako’s childhood was anything but normal. She was just a teenager when she first sailed into Sierra Leone and encountered a country that would define the course of her life.
There, Sandra left the hospital ship to accompany a medical team as they set up a clinic in a village outside of Freetown, tending to a measles outbreak. Sandra spent the week sitting with mothers who were bringing their sick children for care.
“Of course, I was a teenager, so not skilled to actually help medically, but I was able to help the moms who were giving their children fluids to rehydrate them,” remembers Sandra. “Sadly, a couple of children died that week. That really had an impact on me… Those experiences are really what determined my plans to go to medical school.”
Sandra went on to study medicine in her home country of the Netherlands. Years later, she returned to Sierra Leone to help establish a Mercy Ships health facility in Freetown, providing obstetric fistula care for women with childbirth injuries as well as child health services.
Eighteen years later, Sandra still calls Sierra Leone home.

Healed After 27 Years: Coumba’s Journey
StoryCoumba was at her family’s farm on the day that her life changed forever.
“Our mother used to cook with fire,” she said. “It was a big farm, so my mother would start a fire in one place, then go to another. My little brother was playing by the fire, got too close, and started to burn.”
At just 4 years old, Coumba rushed in to save her brother as the fire grew.
“I fell on my left side, so I burned there,” Coumba said. “My brother was then crying a lot, which my mother heard, so she came to us, but I was already entirely burnt on my left side.”
With her left arm fused in a bent position and her hand damaged, Coumba adjusted to life with only one functional arm and hand. She grew up to marry, work as a maid, and raise three children on their rice and vegetable farm in northern Senegal. Coumba longed to take care of the farm herself, like many other women do in Senegal, but her limited range of motion made this dream impossible.
After decades of living with a bent arm, surgery on the Africa Mercy® meant that at the age of 31, Coumba’s life was about to change.