Despite the fact that our schedules are full for pediatrics and general surgery cases, the dock is still packed everyday with people hoping to get the chance to be screened for surgery. Initially, we would have well over 200 people a day who stood in line, then were divided into sections depending on which service needed to screen them. We have general, eye, plastic, orthopedic, and maxillofacial surgeons. As the schedules for nearly all of disciplines are completely full for the remainer of the outreach, we have to turn many people away everyday. No many how many times you have to say "no", it doesn't get any easier. Some of them take it well, smile and say "merci", others argue through translators that there has to be someway to help, and others try again another day, in hopes that they won't be remembered and that a different crew member might have another opinion.
There are so many kids with bowed legs here that I think we could have filled all 8 weeks of pediatric orthopedics fixing them. Unfortunately, we had adult orthopedic surgeons scheduled for the last 4 weeks and had to cancel the whole month, as there were not enough adults who were appropriate for surgery. We prayed hard for a pediatric surgeon to be willing to come, but were unable to find one. There are surgeons in town who can also perform this surgery, but few people can afford to have it done. People come from all parts of the country ,even from Togo or Nigeria, in hopes that Mercy Ships can indeed live out our mission statement- to deliver hope and healing to the world's forgotten poor.....

This little boy's right tibia didn't form adequately and he was left with a large leg length discrepancy. He wanted to have surgery so he could be a better soccer player.

This is him with his prosthesis made for him locally. Our doctors determined that the only option was to amputate, and this would likely not improved his function significantly. Surprisingly, he could run pretty well without the prosthesis.



Average day's line of patients waiting to be screened

This boy has elephantiasis, caused by a parasitic worm that invades the lymphatic system. There are drugs that can be given with early diagnosis but surgery is generally not effective overall.