A four-year-old child from Senegal has become the first person to receive a surgical treatment on the world’s largest purpose-built civilian hospital ship, the ‘Global Mercy’.
Amadou, aged 4, from the south of Senegal, suffered with a windswept leg and bowed leg, but the early surgical intervention helped repair his condition before his development was severely impacted.
The ‘Global Mercy’ is the newest and largest vessel owned by faith-based charity Mercy Ships. It is projected to serve 150,000 patients over the next five decades.
The 174-meter, 37,000-ton ship has six operating rooms and houses over 600 medical and other volunteers from around the globe.
Dr Rachel Buckingham, the orthopaedic surgeon who performed Amadou’s operation, said, ‘Senegal does not have any children’s orthopaedic surgeons, which means that to try and have this surgery, patients would have to travel to another country, which is prohibitively expensive for most people, so most of these patients would never have the opportunity to have surgery.’
