The international aid organisation Mercy Ships will provide the world’s largest private hospital ship in the port of Freetown in Sierra Leone for operations and training of local professionals over the next ten months.
In mid-August, the world’s largest civilian hospital ship, the “Global Mercy“, was welcomed back to Freetown as part of a long-standing partnership between the international aid organisation Mercy Ships and the government of Sierra Leone. More than 1,400 operations are planned for the ten-month aid mission. At the same time, the training of medical professionals from Sierra Leone will continue.
The “Global Mercy” left the West African country in June for a short annual maintenance visit to Tenerife, having already performed 1,979 operations for 1,728 patients and trained 145 local medical professionals on board in the previous ten months.
Mercy Ships donor-funded medical interventions
The ship returned at the invitation of President Julius Maada Bio. He had asked the non-profit organisation, which was founded in 1978 and is financed by donations, to extend the aid mission in order to carry out further operations and continue the training programmes in Sierra Leone.
Mercy Ships enables donor-funded surgical procedures and treatments in the specialities of oral and maxillofacial surgery, general surgery, pediatric orthopaedics, pediatric general surgery, plastic reconstructive surgery and ophthalmology on board the hospital ship.
The challenges in Sierra Leone are great: according to the BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development), the extremely difficult social situation, the great poverty of the population and the delicate food situation with regularly occurring famines remain risks to political stability and social peace.
The election results from June 2023 are also being questioned. According to the BMZ, the independent coalition “National Election Watch” expressed doubts about the election results and the opposition did not recognise them. The donor community also rated the elections as non-transparent and untrustworthy.
It was only through the mediation of the Commonwealth and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that the government and opposition were able to re-engage in talks and signed a declaration on national unity in October 2023. Among other things, this provides for the establishment of a non-partisan electoral commission and a review of the 2023 elections at all three levels (presidency, parliament, municipalities).
