Let's Talk Nursing And Medical Stuff......

There was a lot of excitement on the ship this week as the first patients arrived on Monday with surgeries beginning on Tuesday. I thought I would give some more details about the hospital and the wards. So if you don't care too much for it maybe just watch the video and skip the rest ;)

There are 4 wards on the ship with 20 beds each and 3 ICU beds. They offer 5 different types of surgeries which are each performed for a certain amout of time throughout the 10 month field service.

1. General- goiters, hernias and other issues correctible by surgery

2. Maxillofacial- cleft lip, cleft palate, craniofacial tumors

3. Orthopedic- fractures, club feet and neglected trauma

4. Plastic- severe wound scars, burn contractures and benign tumors

5. Obstetric Fistual's and Women's Health- Childbirth complications, vesicovaginal fistulas (VVF), rectovaginal fistulas and prolapse.

This short video gives you a glimpse of what Mercy Ships accomplished last year while in Madagascar. You may have to copy and past the link into the search bar but this one gives me goosebumps every time I watch it :)

http://youtu.be/rI4_5mn-s9Q

Last year Mercy Ships noticed an increasing need for the VVF repair.  If you can't remember what that is refer back to my post "The Beauty Of Nursing". What is most exciting is that during this field service VVF surgeries will be performed for the entire 10 months. Mercy Ships has parterend with the local hospital to completly renovate one of their buildings for a brand new 30 bed obstretic fistual clinic. Patient's will now receive the surgeries on the ship and then after a couple of days be transferred to the clinic to finish there recovery which in total takes about 14-20 days. Last year about 100 VVF surgeries were performed. With the start of this new clinic they are estimating 500 surgeries to be performed. I never thought I would be excited about women's health but that is exciting!

This is a huge project that Mercy Ships has taken on and there is much excitement about it throughout the entire organization. With all of this comes a great deal of ownership and  responsibilty which I think every nurse and volunteer is ready to step up and take on this challenge. More than that we are all so humbled to be able to play a part in developing this clinic. This week and next week we will be working hard to get everything cleaned and setup for our first set of patient's to come on September 22nd. We are basically starting from scratch. We have a new space and now to have to fill it with beds, supplies, medical equipement and patients. More than that we are slowly watching this space transform into a place of hope, healing and redemption for so many women and that is the most exciting thing.


Please continue to pray for all of the volunteers as patients arrive, surgeries continue and everything gets into full swing here. Thanks for reading!


Deborah

    The port. You can kind of see the Africa Mercy all the way in the back.

              Indian Ocean is beautiful! 

                                                            OBF clinic before we started cleaning. 

                            

 Looking more and more like a clinic! Stay tuned this place is going to continue to transform :)