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April's Charity of the Month: Mercy Ships

In Sierra Leone, an estimated 250,000 people are disabled as a result of polio and civil war injuries.

Mercy Ships operates a hospital onboard “Africa Mercy," which travels to underserved communities in Africa providing free medical care to people in need.

Mercy Ships — a non profit committed to providing basic and rehabilitative health care in remote areas of the world by converting ships into hospitals — is working hard to return dignity and hope to people in need at the New Steps Centre, a land-based rehabilitation clinic east of the capital city of Freetown.

This year, the MDRT Foundation awarded a $15,000 grant to Mercy Ships to fund the Mobility Matters program at the New Steps Centre. This grant was sponsored by Virginia Lind, LUTCF, ChFC, a 14-year MDRT member from Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

For almost 11 years (1991-2002), the mountains and lush forests of Sierra Leone were transformed into a dangerous battlefield during a violent civil war. One of the biggest casualties of this war was the destruction of the country’s health care system. The country’s polio vaccination program ceased during the war creating a new generation of polio patients.

In addition, landmines and the violent amputation attacks on civilians by the rebels resulted in thousands of amputees. Without access to basic health care, thousands of disabled people were left without the necessary physical rehabilitation to lead a healthy and productive life.

The rehabilitation department of New Steps works with Mercy Ships mobile medical teams to address the health care needs of people with mobility limitations. New Steps distributes prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs, canes and orthoses (braces) for polio patients, and provides on site and home physical and occupational therapy and counseling free of charge.

The New Steps Centre is an integrated health care clinic that also provides rehabilitation, basic health care and social and economic services to thousands who have been disabled and displaced by war, landmines or disease. In 2006, the medical volunteer staff assisted more than 2,500 disabled patients on site and conducted more than 30 community visits to remote areas of Sierra Leone.

Since 1978, Mercy Ships has traveled to some of the world’s poorest regions to provide life-saving surgeries and preventative health care to people around the world. More often than not, the Mercy Ships volunteer medical staff is the first medical care many of these people have ever had.