The MV Africa Mercy is a , hospital ship belonging to the humanitarian organization Mercy Ships. Converted from the rail ferry MS Dronning Ingrid in 2007, she is currently the world's second largest non-governmental floating hospital, following the organization's newest and largest ship, the .
Design and capabilities
The Africa Mercy project started in March 1999. A former rail ferry named Dronning Ingrid (Queen Ingrid) was bought in Denmark for , through a donation from U.K. businesswoman Ann Gloag's Balcraig Foundation. Dronning Ingrid is the first of three identical ships built for DSB (Danish State Railways). The other ships are the and the .
The ship was fitted out at the Cammell Laird shipyard at Hebburn in Tyneside, England. The ferry's large train deck facilitated its conversion into a hospital ship. Over the next few years, at a final cost of over , the Dronning Ingrid was transformed into the Africa Mercy, which was the largest non-governmental hospital ship in the world until the construction of the Global Mercy in 2020. Although Mercy Ships has now retired all its earlier ships, the Africa Mercy has greater capacity than all three of its previous ships combined.
Facilities
The lower decks of the eight-deck Africa Mercy are a modern hospital with five operating theaters, an Intensive Care Unit, an Ophthalmology unit, a CT scanner, x-ray, laboratories, and a recovery ward with beds for . In addition to the ship's lab capabilities, ship physicians can consult with pathologists in the U.S. via satellite communications.
On its upper decks, the ship has accommodations for members including families, couples and individuals. The ship has , a day care center, a school for all ages up through the last year of high school, a library, a launderette, a small supermarket, a restaurant, a gymnasium, shops, and a donated Starbucks café. A fleet of travels with the ship, for use in Mercy Ships land-based operations.
The initial provisions that were loaded aboard the Africa Mercy included of breakfast cereal, of coffee, and of frozen meat and fish (which was an estimated four months' supply). Today, the supply chain for the Africa Mercy stretches halfway across the globe. To keep the Africa Mercy provisioned involves shipping to the floating hospital at least 24 containers per year, equipped with everything from medical devices and medical supplies to food and furniture. Containers are filled at Mercy Ships headquarters in Garden Valley, Texas, and shipped from the port of Houston, or they are filled and shipped from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Temperature-sensitive supplies like vaccines and media plates are often transported via air, in rolling ice chests that travel with Mercy Ships staffers who are en route to the Africa Mercy.
Medical and surgical care
The ship is set up to provide onboard surgical care, an Intensive care unit, and a recovery ward. Land-based medical operations provide patient screenings for surgeries, health and dental care, mental health programs, and palliative care for terminally ill patients.
The operating rooms of the Africa Mercy are equipped for specific surgeries that are greatly needed in the countries that the ship visits. These surgeries can also be performed efficiently and repeatedly. Conditions treated onboard the ship include head and neck tumors, goiters, hernias, cleft lip and palate, cataracts, bowed legs (genu varum), club foot, burns and burn scars, childbirth injuries and the gangrene-like childhood disease called noma. Because medical care is so scarce in the countries that Mercy Ships serves, these medical conditions often become severe enough to be disfiguring, which means that patients are often shunned by their communities. The surgical correction of their medical problems assists patients in reintegrating with their communities and resuming normal lives.
On land, a screening clinic is set up to evaluate potential patients for surgeries, often in a large area like a sports arena. Volunteers set up medical and dental clinics to treat people in the surrounding communities. A HOPE Center established near the ship provides extended medical care to patients. In addition, volunteers train local healthcare workers in providing primary healthcare, and they teach workers to train others in providing healthcare.