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| Cleft lip or palate occurs approximately once out of every 700 births. In the United States, clefts are generally treated within months of a child’s birth. With only 103 physicians and 13 dentists serving the 3.25 million people of Liberia, this simple surgery remains unavailable. |
Kou responded to flyers that were posted in her village announcing Mercy Ships’ patient screening, to be held near the northern border of Liberia. She was first in line and the first person scheduled for surgery onboard the Anastasis because she had a common and treatable condition. |
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| Physicians and traditional healers in Benin couldn’t treat Alfred’s benign tumor. Because they lived on one dollar a day without water and electricity, Alfred’s family could no longer afford to pay for these failed remedies. Slowly starving to death, Alfred weighed 44 pounds, his tumor weighing five of them. His family had given up hope and had relinquished him to death. |
Alfred’s tumor was removed in three hours. Two ribs from his chest and bone from his hip rebuilt his lower jaw that had been shattered by the tumor’s growth. Given a new lease on life, Alfred emerged from the Anastasis into a world filled with hope. |
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Kou is first in line to see if she will qualify for surgery. |
The surgical team removes a life-threatening tumor in one of the operating rooms onboard the anastasis. |
People waiting in line at a medical screening. |
| Dropping anchor in some of the world’s poorest countries, Mercy Ships provides life-changing and often life-saving surgeries to those that lack the most basic of health services. Thousands of flyers and teams of volunteers spread word of the community development projects, public health education and health care provided by the visiting ship. Medical screenings are held throughout the country where surgical candidates are screened for free surgeries which will be performed in state-of-the-art operating rooms onboard the ship. |
The 552-foot flagship Anastasis arrives in the west African city of Cotonou, Benin. The Anastasis carries more than 350 volunteer surgeons, physicians, dentists, nurses and support staff from around the world. Donating their time and respective skills in monthly increments, each volunteer pays crew fees to defray the costs incurred by Mercy Ships. |
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harris' community welcomes him home. |
| Founded in 1978, Mercy Ships’ message of hope and healing has been spread in 223 visits to 54 ports in developing nations. Following treatment onboard a Mercy Ship, over 1.5 million people have returned home to new lives of improved health and acceptance. |
Mercy Ships
PO Box 2020
Garden Valley, TX 75771 USA
903.939.7000
info@mercyships.org
www.mercyships.org |
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