Mercy Ships Brings Sight to Liberians Aboard the African Mercy

Mercy Ships Brings Sight to Liberians Aboard the African Mercy

Mercy Vision
Monrovia, Liberia
Mercy Ships

 

Mercy Ships, faith-based organization, has deployed hospital ships to developing nations since 1978. In this time they have delivered over $60 million of crucial medical supplies and medicines to those in need. Mercy Ships addresses the medical needs of the country’s population as well as the need for sustainable health care. Aboard hospital ships, volunteer medical personnel from over 40 countries work to perform surgeries such as cleft lip and palate, cataract removal, straightening of crossed eyes, orthopaedic and facial reconstruction. Mercy Ships also works to empower the community through activities such as rebuilding damaged medical facilities and constructing new facilities, community health education, clean water and sanitation, agriculture, women’s projects, skills training and small business education.

 

Through the Mercy Vision program, Mercy Ships works to address surgical and medical eye needs. The Mercy Vision goal is to reduce the prevalence of blindness/low vision due to cataract and pterygium, and to build the capacity of local eye care systems to bring host nations closer to the World Health Organization (WHO) Vision 2020 goal of 2,500 cataract operations per million population per year. This program is helping to improve the lives of many West Africans.

 

The Republic of Liberia is located on the west coast of Africa and has a population over 3 million. The country, according to the USAID 2005 Annual Report, “is the classic ‘failed state’ in every respect.”   Instability, brought on by a civil war which lasted from 1989 until 2003, has taken a toll on the country’s economy and has led to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

 

An estimated 30,000 Liberians are blind; half of these cases are caused by cataracts. Nearly 80% of the blindness is preventable or treatable. A growing number of cases are children due to poor nutrition and lack of access to healthcare. Those suffering from blindness must be dependent on others for their survival and everyday needs for the rest of their lives. The incidence of blindness also impacts on the socioeconomic conditions in the country.

 

Liberia experienced an exodus of medical professionals during and after the civil war and there are very few ophthalmologists in the country. The high cost of surgery also makes treatment unaffordable for most Liberians.

 

The new hospital ship, the Africa Mercy docked in Liberia in February 2008 and will remain until November 2008. This vessel is the largest non-governmental hospital ship of its kind boasting six state of the art surgical rooms and 78 hospital beds. The shiphouses two fully equipped ophthalmic surgical suites. The primary emphasis in eye surgeries is the reduction of blindness due to cataract. Screening sessions are held at daily eye clinics and mobile health clinics. Surgeries are then scheduled and performed aboard the Africa Mercy by one to two full time ophthalmic surgeons.

 

Non-surgical eye care needs, such as allergy, infections, injury and pain are addressed as well. Emotional and spiritual counseling is provided to those for whom treatment is not an option.

 

To help with Liberia’s long term needs, Mercy Ships will provide ongoing training for two local eye surgeons. Community volunteers will also be trained in identifying eye conditions and providing public eye education. They will refer those in need of treatment to Mercy Ships.

 

In recent previous trips to Liberia, Mercy Ships has treated 1491 patients for cataract.   With some adjustments in program design and the availability of the Africa Mercy, the goal for this deployment is to treat another 2,250 patients with cataract and 280 patients with other ophthalmic conditions.  Availability of surgeons has not met expectations in the early part of the deployment so these goals may be scaled back slightly. However, the Mercy Vision program is expected to provide 3,000+ eye surgeries in 2009 along with an eye fellowship program.

 

Partners/ donors for the Mercy Vision program: Alcon, DORC International, Baush & Lomb, Eagle Labs, Good Lite, Medtronics, Nidek, Rhein Medical

 

Prince was born in 1997 during the merciless civil war that ravaged Liberia. It wasn’t so much the consequences of the war that hindered Prince starting school, as the inability to see like other children.

 

At the age of seven, he became nearsighted and all he could see were faint shapes. 11-year-old Prince Fayiah does not know how to read or write. He spends his time helping his mother with domestic duties such as drawing water from the well. He also enjoys playing football with his friends. He sometimes runs into problems when the sun blinds him and he can’t see the ball. Unfortunately, his peers tease him due to his deteriorating eye sight.

 

Anticipating a dark future for Prince, his uncle Junior Harleyson, living in Monrovia, brought him to a clinic run by the local Seventh Day Adventist Church. To their dismay, doctors at the clinic could do nothing for him. Prince was told that he needed a major operation to correct his vision. Perhaps Mercy Ships would be able to help them. Sensing hope, Junior brought his nephew with him to a Mercy Ships screening in Gaye Town. He was given an appointment card for surgery on the Africa Mercy the following week.

 

Junior said of the surgery his nephew received: “I pray that he will be fine. That he will be able to see and go to school. By the grace of God, he will eventually be able to go to college and start working too.”

 

Prince with his “new” eyes can now see sunlight. His vision is fully restored, as 99% of cataract surgeries are successful.

 

His parents aim to get Prince enrolled in school in September this year.