News Archive
A year in review
A year ago I was on board the Anastasis in Ghana. A few months later we sailed to Liberia where we operated for a few months, then shut down in anticipation of the move to the Africa Mercy. The first operations occurred in June, the fulfillment of eight years of hard work.
As you might have expected with a new ship, not everything worked quite as planned. For instance, when the harbor generators were running, the noise level in the midships portion of the hospital was too loud. During this first field service, we could not use a 10-bed ward, the area set aside for the eye outpatients, and two of the operating rooms. Sound engineers have devised a solution that will installed in February.
About a month after we started providing services again, we lost a crew member. Collin, a young man who served as our assistant dental coordinator, drowned at a local beach.
Although he had been on board for less than two months, his death affected the crew deeply.
In November I returned from a leave of absence, so I was able to be part of the celebrations as classes finished, buildings opened, and patients went home healthy. I enjoy hearing how students in the various classes have applied their new knowledge and shared it with friends and neighbors.
When we had to cancel our final round of VVF surgery, we were able to send the patients to Sierra Leone for operations at our center there.
In December we drydocked in Gran Canaria. This was a unique experience as the former rail ferry rode the rails into the drydock! One ongoing project is modification to the laboratory area
to accommodate services that were added after the Africa Mercy was designed.
For more, visit Jean\\\'s blog.