Medical Screening is Rescheduled! Praise God!

The ‘screening’ is rescheduled for Saturday, 26 March 2011. Many things about screening have been reconsidered. Senior Management along with Security and our Screening Coordinator have set-up a brand new command structure.

This is the recently published news release:

Mercy Ships reschedules medical screening

Freetown, Sierra Leone,  Mercy Ships, an international charity, will hold a Morning Medical Screening on Saturday, March 26 in Freetown. The screening will be held at the Pharmacy Board Compound opposite to the UN Special Court from 7am. It is only a screening session; there will be no medical treatment on site.

Mercy Ships do not treat hernia, diabetes, epilepsy, stroke, high blood pressure, arthritis, sickle cell, fibroid, asthma, heart-, back- or stomach problems. Mercy Ships offers free surgeries for qualified patients with cleft lip and palate, goiter, tumor, club feet, bow legs, cataracts and plastic surgeries for fire burnt patients.

The hospital ship, Africa Mercy, is docked in the port of Freetown upon invitation from the President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma. The ship’s crew will serve the nation of Sierra Leone for a 10-month Field Service. Mercy Ships management team continues to work with the Sierra Leone Minister of Health and Sanitation to assist with their 5 year health care plan.

Mercy Ships started dental and vision screening, and treatment. Vision screening is held at the Kissy Eye Clinic on Monday mornings, the dental screening takes place every Monday and Thursday morning at the Hope Centre below (aka by the locals, Seafarers’ Complex/Bishop’s Court, or Obama Centre).

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Surgeries onboard the hospital ship are underway and more surgeries   will be scheduled after the screening on Saturday, March 26.

These are the 1st patients of Sierra Leone arriving last Sunday.

That is a great report and tells a lot (pictures added :)). Here’s a bit more information just for you!

We will have a presence at the new screening site a full 24 hours in advance. There will be pre-screeners in the line on Saturday morning from 4 am telling people who we can’t help right away, so they don’t wait in line all day. We believe this is a much kinder way to handle things. I have heard it said that we are expecting more than 7000 this time, but in actuality it will be hard to collect correct statistics when the line will be kept to a minimum by 15 pre-screeners going through the line asking pertinent medical questions, making assessments and gently telling the people that are obviously not candidates right away that we can’t help them and this way trim down the line. To also help this process, we have implemented an aggressive campaign of advertising with the media and on the radio telling the Sierra Leoneans not only that we are having a screening, but what we don’t do as well; such as heart transplants, headaches etc. These people are desperate and will want to stand for hours for an opportunity to be well. We want to minimize the people coming for help that we can’t help through the media and radio. Our prayer however during the entire process is that we will administer God’s love to all those that come whether we are able to offer them surgery or not!

Overall our communication systems improved greatly as a result of the last screening. Like I said, we have a command structure in place which is broken down into 3 parts: Medical, Security, and Site Logistics and all variables of the screening fall under one of those. We will have 2 generators on site for registration to use laptops and printers. We have 14 walkie talkies and 2 outlook areas that security will be able to see over the entire compound and line outside the gate. We have increased security, prayer locations and OSP police  (trained by British forces). We don’t expect any bottlenecks; in fact, our greatest concerns are for theft and crush points.

Inside the gate there will be an intercessory prayer team. There will be tents, tarps and chairs to provide shade.

We will hand out bread and water  (they sell small bags of water here which is what people drink from), and water to the line outside.

 

As mentioned above we will be screening specifically for Maxillo Facial (head & neck tumours), Plastics (cleft lips, burn victims etc.), General goiters (no hernias) and Orthopaedics (club feet, bull legs etc.) We have a capacity limit for all the above surgery specialities of 500 patients of the right mix. Once we have our limit we will send people home telling them we will hold another screening in August and that they should listen to the radio. Even though the line will probably be dismissed my early morning (we start seeing perspective patients at 7 am), we will probably still be assessing, processing, accepting and praying for ineligible patients until around 6 pm. It will be a long, hot day!

Steps have also been taken to convey the information regarding our eye and dental clinics including when and where they are being held. Last week, we had our first eye and dental clinics with lines of approx. 1000 people at each. They were peaceful and successful clinics helping many. We have added extra screening dates to each clinic.

 

 

 

Last Monday we started surgeries. The advance team (a crew of about 10 or so), had scheduled surgeries and created a waiting list of over 700 before we even got here.

 

 

 

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This was in addition to providing 26 non-complicated surgeries. We are very proud of them and all the work they did before and for our arrival!

I’d like to point out that while all these people are waiting around, and being prayed for that we can use this opportunity to interface with the people. We can enjoy conversations, talk to them, ask about their families and culture. It is a rare and special time for us to be able to just spend some time with the people we are here to help. So often, we are, to them, the possibility of business AND everyone here is an entrepreneur. But not, on screening day – it’s not about business, it is about real, tangible hope, and being sisters and brothers in love; interested in who we are as humans and perhaps giving each other value, validity; FRIENDSHIP!

What can you pray for?

• Cloud cover (very hot here)
• A peaceful line of people
• The right people to come to be helped
• Wisdom for the pre-screeners and the ability for them to hear God’s voice about what to say to the patients
• Safety for the patients and crew
• For unusual things to be observed in advance
• For the patients to feel accepted, loved and cared for whether they qualify for surgery or not

I again feel led to work at one of the prayer stations praying for those that don’t meet our mix of available medical care. For those of you that read my March 7th blog, you know, I found this to be a very emotional, challenging and difficult  job. I also feel that God wants me to seek Him to give these people whatever He wills to give them. It could be peace, love, joy, understanding or a multitude of other adjectives and to be truthful, I am humble and privileged to be in such a position and apart from the difficulty and burden of my personal empathy and sympathy for those I’m praying for I feel a deep sense of joy to be able to serve them and Him in this way!

Please pray for me:

• to be filled with the spirit and to speak what God wants each person I pray with to hear!
• for my faith and my heart to be strong, but compassionate
• to be safe from the mosquitoes (I have to admit I am fearful of getting Malaria again, or worse Dengue)
• for a heart that is prepared to serve and be flexible

And lastly,

Please don’t expect many, if any, pictures in regards to the screening. We have been asked NOT to even bring our cameras to the site(avoids temptation; especially for the mamarazzi, as I've been nicknamed :)). We will have a media crew on site wearing orange badges and no one else is allowed to film or photograph. Some of Marketing's pictures will be made available to crew at which time I will share some with you!

Lots of love,

xx Carol  

P.S. Happy, happy faces for you! Thank you for all your all your prayers!

Thank you to the Marketing team for the photos :)