Cerative physical therapy

We have a great team of physical therapists on board.  They do incredible work.

Earlier in the field service (before we got here) they worked with the orthopedic patients. Lots of bones need surgery and subsequent therapy.

The therapists do a lot of their work in a tent on the dock outside of the ship.  You can see the sides of the tent in the  pictures.  Patients who have surgery return as outpatients for therapy for a long period of time.

Right now the therapists are working a lot with the patients who have had plastic surgery.  Many have had severe burns or other injuries that the plastic surgeons work to repair.  Those patients are in the hospital for a long time as they heal and regain movement.  We often see the therapists working with those patients in the halls or the stairwells.

I think it's quite a testimony that the littlest of the patients greet the physical therapists with joy.  Don't forget that therapy is quite painful!  They seem to know that they are being helped.

The therapists have to be pretty creative.  In addition to instructing patients in different languages, they also do all their own casting.  (I understand they don't do that at home.)  One therapist even made a temporary prosthetic leg.

We have a bit of creativity happening in our cabin.  Chuck  has a shoulder problem and brought his pulley and bands for the exercises given him by his physical therapist at home.  I think he has the best equipped closet on the ship!  So twice a day he does his own PT. (pain and torture)

Gym in a closet

 Debbie

Angelique

Angelique is a patient who has been around the ship since the fall, when she had the first of her surgeries.

You can see from this picture just how thin she is.  Patients with these large facial tumors are very isolated.
Many have given up hope of ever being normal. They need spiritual healing as well as physical healing.
We have a great team of chaplains in the hospital who work with the patients.  We know that God is in charge of their healing.

Angelique seeing herself after surgery

As she heals, her skin will eventually shrink to fit her face.  Dr Parker has pioneered this type of surgery and teaches his techniques to other surgeons.  Angelique has been staying at the Hope Center between surgeries.  Today she had her fifth surgery, and we gave her a unit of blood.  She has received a total of eleven units of blood as a result of all those surgeries.


Debbie

Engineers make a difference

Most of the press about the Africa Mercy deals with the hospital operations, but none of that could take place without the engineers and technicians who keep the ship operations running.
The engine room is one area that most people never see.   One usually imagines a place that is hot, greasy and noisy.  I took a tour of the engine room and saw a lot more than I expected.

The Control room is a less noisy space.  We didn't need hearing protection in this room.  When ships come into ports, they usually require the assistance of tug boats.  Not so with the Africa Mercy.   This former railroad Ferry is equipped with precision bow thrusters and aft adjusters that brings it right into port.  At one time, this ship had to line up railroad tracks.  It carried out that type of precision daily.
Many of the controls are similar to those on the bridge.  Of course, since we're in port, we were not moving, but the engines are warm and the ship is in a position where it can leave within one hour if there was ever an emergency that required us to leave the country quickly.

 The engines are large V-16 engines.  To appreciate the size, see the picture below with 8 cylinders on each side.  Right now they are running on diesel fuel provided by the Congo government.  As a result there is a lot of maintenance due to the impurities in the fuel.







The engine room also is critical in taking care of all the crew as well as the hospital operations.

The water supply comes from the Pointe Noire port, but has to be treated.  So there are multiple steps in the process were the water is purified before use for drinking, cooking, and washing.
In addition waste has to be handled for over 500 people.  There is a sewage treatment operation as well as an incinerator to handle bio-hazard waste.

The incinerator operates at about 1000 degrees Celsius.

After sewage is treated, the water quality is almost drinkable.  This is part of the sewage treatment facility.




Along the way through the engine room compartments, one realizes that each room can be sealed off.  Since this area is below sea level,  means of escape are necessary so one does not get trapped in an emergency.  Some escape routes require some climbing.

Looking up at an escape route.

We ended our tour by climbing from below water level to the top deck 8 where we came outside to tour the oxygen plant.

Oxygen is needed in the hospital, so we have small facility that scrubs the air (removes the nitrogen from the air) and stores the purified gas in tanks for the hospital oxygen requirements.

One of the keys to successful scrubber operation is to have them in air conditions rooms.  This is one of the cool spots on board.  A local hospital was having problems with oxygen production and our engineers told them they had to air condition the room!

This oxygen monitor indicated 95% purity.












So maintaining the engines, rebuilding generators, maintaining water systems, ensuring
sanitation on board, keeping refrigeration systems going, maintaining HVAC and vacuum systems are all part of what it takes to bring Hope and Healing to the World's forgotten poor in this part of the world.
These are generally the unseen operations that we all depend on.  They really do make a difference.


Chuck

A Normal Childhood

There are children on the Africa Mercy, from preschool to high school.  Life is pretty normal.  They live on a hospital ship. Actually, it's the largest civilian hospital ship.

They go to school on board.  The class size is pretty small, sometimes two or three per grade level.  This fall, they played soccer on Saturdays.  That sounds normal.  But it was on the beach in the Congo.

Sometimes when we eat dinner, we can hear the ballet class practicing above the dining room.  They run down to get their dinner dressed in tutus.  I think we'll see them perform at Easter.

The preschool class gets to join with some patients on the dock.  Aren't they cute?

Classes sometimes come down to the hospital or visit the hope center to play with the patients.

And I can't forget the kids in the hospital wards.  Being on a hospital ship must be a pretty unusual experience for them.  Below is a picture of what happened to a box that Chuck had in supply.  It looks like a good use for that box!

Last weekend the youth group went camping.  That doesn't sound unusual.  But they were camping on the beach in Congo.

Setting up camp

Part of the fun on the beach was the crocodile.  As one mom told us, "they got the crocodile, they killed the crocodile, they skinned the crocodile, they cooked the crocodile, they ate the crocodile."

Sunset on the beach

Debbie

Art Class

Today I got to go to the deaf school, where Mercy Ships goes every week to give an art class.  I'm not an artist, but it was pretty fun anyway.

Harry leading the macarena 

Harry doesn't often lead the art class.  The last time he went was six weeks ago, when he taught the class the macarena.  Apparently, it is now an expected start to the art class.  So we started out with a silent macarena.

I was one of ten people from the ship, and we sat with the students.  Thinking back on it, I think that Harry and I were the only ones from the U.S.  That's not unusual since there are 35 countries represented on the ship this week.

There were about 30 kids in the class, sitting two or three to a bench. The room is open to the outside with concrete walls and floors, similar to what we saw in Guinea.  It was pretty hot, but we got a breeze every once in a while.


We all had a pencil and a sheet of paper, and Harry showed us how to draw a leopard head, step by step. There was no sign language interpreter, and although these kids are old enough to write, none of us speak French.  But it really didn't matter- everyone seemed to have fun.

A previous visit when they painted

When we signed our pictures at the end, the girl I was sitting with was named Debra.  I told her that we had the same name!  She drew an American flag on the back of her paper to show me.  She guessed right!

Debbie

Claire's surgery

We've had a lot of thyroid patients since we've been here.  One of these patients is Claire.

Claire having a pre-surgical scan

At home, a goiter would be operated on rather quickly, and would never get as large as Claire's.

Here she is after surgery with one of the nurses

Claire leaving the ship with one of the hospital chaplains

We've done a lot of follow- up blood tests on Claire- and she's doing well!

Debbie

The Italian Navy Comes to Pointe Noire

Ships come and go every day in the port of Pointe Noire.  We were delighted to see the arrival of an Italian Air Craft Carrier directly across from the Africa Mercy.  Some of our crew visited the Italian ship and arranged for over 200 of us to take a tour.

The Aircraft Carrier as seen from our Port Side.

The ship was here for several days.  We had many visitors from the Ship.  Some of their technical staff met with our engineers and provided some help that we needed.  There were lots of good personal exchanges.

One usually thinks of Navy ships as being used for military conflict.  This ship has been on a humanitarian mission.  They have a state of the art hospital on board and travel to provide surgeries in African countries.
Most of the surgeries are for cleft lip/palates that are coordinated through Operations Smile. http://www.operationsmile.org/

When we entered the ship, it looked like a convention center!.  This ship was promoting Italian products and quality.  While there were some military displays, most were commercial displays for Italian manufacturing or some charitable organization that they partner with such as Operation Smile.

This deck is where we started and ended our tour.

The hospital has Xray and other imaging devices on board.  They have rooms for patients and family members.

Mercy Ship crew touring the hospital

There were no surgeries in the Congo.  (Mercy Ships was taking care of that and has so far provided over one hundred cleft lip surgeries so far).  The ship was in The Congo to promote Italian business and products.

We were assured that although the ship has never experienced combat, they are ready if necessary and have ongoing training whenever they are at sea.

The flight deck was a welcome site.  Even though it was raining when we started the tour, it stopped for a while as we were able to get up close to the helicopters and the Harrier jets on board.  It was interesting to see the ski jump at the end of the runway which can be used to provide a little extra lift.

We were told that all the pilots received their training in the USA.
Since were were in the port, no aircraft was taking off, so there were no demonstrations or offers for free rides!

Here I am on the flight deck during a break from the rain.

Our tour host spoke English well and had a great deal of enthusiasm and good sense of humor.

This was one opportunity we had here to share and receive hospitality.  I came away from this tour appreciating the use of Italy's military to promote and achieve much good.  Along with surgeries on the ship, their crew goes into African countries and helps build or repair things like schools, medical clinics or assist churches and other philanthropic  organizations. It's quite a paradigm shift when I think about the services provided by people in military service.



Chuck