Usually, at this point in the outreach, we have 3 surgical specialties running onboard the ship; Max-fax, General, and VVF (Vesico-vaginal Fistula). Because of Mercy Ships’ prior work in Sierra Leone, a local Women’s Health/ VVF clinic for bladder reconstruction was started and has continued serving the women of Sierra Leone for the past number of years. In this respect, we, as Mercy Ships, worked ourselves out of a job! It is wonderful not to be needed and be able to focus our efforts on other needed surgeries. So, at this point in the 2011 Sierra Leone outreach, we have only Max-fax and General surgeries running.
“General” surgery does not mean any and every surgery, although our current surgeon, Dr. Bruce Steffes, can and will do just about any surgery needed. The typical general surgeries we perform onboard the Africa Mercy are hernia repairs, hydrocele repairs, lipoma removals, keloid removals, and thyroidectomies (goiter removals). Unfortunately, we were unable to secure an agreement with the government of Sierra Leone to commit to provide levothyroxine (the artificial thyroid hormone tablets needed daily after the thyroid gland is removed), and so we were unable to ethically perform this much-needed surgery without the promise of this medication supply. This greatly limited the variety of our surgeries to… you guessed it… hernias, hydroceles, and lipomas (with a definite emphasis on hernias!).
When I first found out that being a “general” charge nurse meant caring for a bunch of middle aged men with hernia’s, I just about took a plane home. However, as our team as grown and we’ve all become more comfortable with the surgery and care for our patients, we’ve all “settled in” to what we fondly call “Hernia Land”, a.k.a. B Ward.
That is where I have been working the past 2 ½ months prior to (and on and off during) the start of my Clinical Ward Instructor job share position. It’s still my home ward I work as charge nurse on my “off” weeks. While it may sound strange, I’ve come to enjoy and appreciate each of the surgeries we perform. Looking at most of the patients when they first come in, you usually can’t see anything wrong with them, but it’s the unseen malformation that, at times, is the difference between getting married and/or being unable to work.
Onboard the ship, you will never find the general (hernia/hydrocele) surgeries in the limelight, and they are rarely mentioned in Mercy Ships literature or boasted about on tours. However, the number of men (and women) affected by hernias in Sierra Leone is such a high number, that despite our 6-9 surgeries per day, we still have a waiting list that is well over 500 people that grows by the day. This is an enormous need. While it may seem a bit far-fetched to claim that these hernia surgeries are “transforming people’s lives”, I would beg to offer the thought some consideration. Just because there is a need that makes us feel a bit uncomfortable or is not quite “politically correct” dinner conversation, doesn’t mean we should minimize its importance or the impact in can make in the lives of hundreds of men (and women).
We had a group of men from the provinces (surrounding rural villages/areas) who came in for their hernia surgeries. The evening of their surgery day, as they all lay in their beds resting, I heard them talking to one another in Krio as I walked up to them to see how they were doing. They praised our excellent and compassionate care of them on the ship, and all I could respond with is, “you the reason we all come, we raise support, and volunteer our time is because of our love for Jesus and desire to be more like Him.” The man, and his neighbors answered, “I know. And because of what we have seen and experienced, we want to go back to our villages and preach the gospel”. Later that night, they all requested their own Bibles so they could take them and “preach” once they arrived back home. It reminds me of the St. Francis of Assisi quote,
“Preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words.”
That is truly a testimony of God’s incredible work, even through the “unmentionable” surgeries few will ever hear about. Praise be to Him for what He has done and what He will continue to do.
In His Love,
~Anna~
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