It is a great pleasure to be able to tell you that I will be back in Africa today, but just for a shorter time of three weeks.
First, a little reminder of were we was for 19th months.. i was in Senegal and onboard the Africa Mercy … it is a long time ago, but still very short and i remember the last days very well! All crew members on the ship were called to a important meeting on Friday March 14, 2020 and we was informed that all operational program need to be closed because of safety for crew and our patients. All patients who had been given time for surgery were now told to wait for a new appointment at some point in the future. The door to the ship was almost closed that evening, but the ward was open for a few weeks to treat the last wounds before the last nurses pack up the ward. We packed up the OR and fastened everything to the floor to be ready to leave the port anytime. The corona start to spread in the world as you know and most of us start to book flights to come home before the boarder was closed.. It was traumatic and most of the crew went home with loss and grief, but also a strong desire that we will see our patient back one day… it become a looong meantime. That great thing is that time has come to see our eye patient back again .. it will happen soon, in a local hospital this time.
I’m on my way to Dakar today and I feels very exciting! It is little strange to be in airplanes again and some routines have changed for everyone’s safety. I have an extra bag of medical supply ( iv- tubings ) and I was suppose to pay extra for it but I checked in so early and the place to pay for it was not open, so i didn’t need to pay any for this bag with medical supply.. nice.. God walk before us..
This eye project will take place in a local hospital in Dakar, so not onboard the ship this time. We are a team from Mercy Ships who will come together this week and we will complete these cataract surgeries together with three local eye surgeons, Dr Badiane, Dr Lena and Dr Marie. All of them have been onboard in the ophthalmic surgery room for a shorter mentoring program, they are the ones who own this eyeproject. It feels great to meet everyone again and it feels special to do this surgeries at a local hospital, but the best of all is to welcome all the patients who have been waiting for us so long, they have get a phonecall from us earlier this month to be informed to come to us a specific day. There will be some who are still on our waiting list, who is not medical fit for surgery.. but we pray that God will take care of them.
There were many eye patients that we needed to called to cancel in March 2020. It was so sad but our daycrew who called everyone did a great job. They know there own culture and did the phone call in a very respectful way, they gave the patient hope to get help in the future ( no promises when). We are now 19 months later and are soon ready to receive all medical fitted eye patient again for cataract surgery. We use a technology called MSICS, manual small incision cataract surgery and it is the most effective and cheapest technology and surgical method in this context. Many local ophthalmologists have had the opportunity to undergo a mentoring program onboard the ship with Dr. Strauss as a teacher. This surgical ophthalmologist course includes mentoring time of 300 cataract surgeries and 150 surgeries must be done independently to get the corse approved.
This picture above was the last surgery onboard the ship, it was a normal Thursday when lots of mentorship wa going on at the same time.. a local doctor was there and a local nurse as well… as you can see, the OR 4 is in full swing. We had not taken any pictures of our work in the eye room while the ship was in Dakar 2020… so just in this very moment, I asked a nurse if she could pick up the camera from the OR office and take a picture. We didn’t know then, but this was the last day of surgery and the last eye surgery who took place in Dakar 2020, and we got a picture for it! Amazing.. the day after was everything closed..
Dr. Glenn, who is on the right side in the picture above, is a fantastic leader and surgeon, he has trained over 35 eye surgeries in Africa.
I had to do a PCR test yesterday and it went well. . When I arrive to Senegal, a Senegales taxi will pick me up ( no mercy ships car with full of mercy shippers will pick me up this time) It is funny how we are used to observe other mercy shippers in the airport and we often travel at the same flight and sometime do the same routes, but not this time. I don’t see any mercy ships t-shirt anywhere.., but i know Missy will wear one when i meet her 🙂 My quarantine period of at least two days, will begins tonight at the hotel in Dakar. After a few days later, i will meet Linda for the first time and she will take my second PCR teat… Very nice way to meet😂.. well, I know I will be very happy to see my eye team colleagues again. We will help patients with very severe visual lost. The hospital ship Africa Mercy will not be there this time then but are expected to arrive in Senegal in early 2022.
Global Mercy is the new ship who was built in China. It has been a long wait, but on September 12, the ship arrived to Antwepen to be equipped. The ship traveled through the Suez Canal and had to meet the Egyptian customs before entering the chanal, the crew onboard then told the customs officials who Mercy Ships are and what we so and the customs were very touched about ut and decided to let the ship pass through the suez channel free of charge. I think the fee is usually very high. Mercy Ships is very grateful for the generosity of the Egyptian customs, I really feel that God is going before us and paving the way for this great project.
I’ll be going to Global Mercy in November … but you will get updates of that when I’m there..
Thank you so much for praying for me and for Mercy Ship’s work. God’s rich blessing to you all! / Anneli
Mercy Ships Anneli 