Measuring 174 meters long by 28.6 meters wide and comprising 12 bridges, the “Global Mercy” will remain four weeks to train 260 health professionals.
Le Monde With AFP
The Global Mercy, the largest civilian world ship in the world, made its debut in Africa in the port of Dakar, where he will stay four weeks to train health professionals, noted an AFP journalist on Monday 30 May.
This giant – measuring 174 meters long by 28.6 meters wide and comprising 12 bridges – arrived in the port of the Senegalese capital on Friday where it is visible from afar, and will stay there four weeks until the end of June , before returning in 2023 to provide surgical care to the poor populations.
His arrival coincides with a new drama that has upset the country and highlighted the deficiencies of the Senegal health system. Eleven babies died on May 25 in a fire in a public hospital in Tivaouane (west).
“Our hearts are broken for the eleven families who have lost their babies. It is a disaster. And it is difficult to come and have a positive message when we had prepared at an extraordinary moment”, entrusted to journalists Bryce Wagner, executive director of Mercy Ships Global Association, an international NGO working to improve access to health care in several African countries.
Two Mercy Ships ships in Dakar
On the Global Mercy, the hospital covers around 7,000 m 2
é> and includes “6 operating blocks, 102 acute care beds, 7 intensive care beds and 90 convalescent beds”, according to a statement. The construction of this boat lasted 48 months, according to the organization.
Based on forty-three years of experience of the organization and more than five years to specifically study the results of the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship in service since 2007 to help the poorest in West and Central Africa , Mercy Ships wanted to add another “superior capacity” and “objectives” ship.
The young Mohamed Gueye, 13, testified to having been treated in 2020 on the Africa Mercy for a tumor in his mouth and confided being happy to have found a “new face”. His father, originally from a village in the Kaolack region (south), explained that he was too poor to pay such an operation before the arrival of Mercy Ships in Senegal.
During his stay in Senegal, the crew of the Global Mercy intends to participate in the training of 260 Senegalese health professionals, alongside the crew of the Africa Mercy, present in the port of Dakar since February (until ‘In November) and which provides surgery on board. At the end of June, the Global Mercy will return to the Canaries for the “full and final dressing of the boat”.
New mission between February and June 2023
Mercy Ships plans to return between February and June 2023 in order to conduct training and surgery operations: maxillofacial and reconstruction surgery, removal of tumors, repair of the labial and palatins, repair of obstetric fistulas, etc.
The Senegalese president Macky Sall formally welcomed the Global Mercy on Monday morning during a ceremony, in the presence of the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Packo, and the president of the Comoros, Azali Assoumani. The Ministers of Health of Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville were also present.
“I would like to thank and congratulate Don Stephens [Founder of Mercy Ships] and the members of Mercy Ships. We express our gratitude to them in the promotion of safe surgery in Africa and their bring all the recognition which has been due to them since 1990, “said Sall.