LIBERIA: Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf visits world's largest hospital ship, the Africa Mercy

Record ID: 456357

  • Title: LIBERIA: Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf visits world's largest hospital ship, the Africa Mercy
  • Date: 7th June 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) MONROVIA, LIBERIA (MAY 28, 2007) (REUTERS) CREW STANDING ON THE AFRICA MERCY LOOKING DOWN UNITED NATIONS SOLDIER STANDING NEXT TO SHIP/ WRITING ON SHIP READING: "AFRICA MERCY"
  • Embargoed: 22nd June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Liberia
  • Country: Liberia
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA79GFZBIOJ2MAL4AYUUWMGF68B
  • Story Text: Liberia's President Johnson-Sirleaf visits world's largest hospital ship, the Africa Mercy, to personally thank the crew for providing free healthcare. Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first female elected head of state visited the Mercy Ship on Monday (May 28) which arrived in Monrovia last week.
    The world's largest charity hospital ship docked in Liberia on Wednesday (May 23) in order to provide free health care and community services.
    The 80-bed 'Africa Mercy' is a former Danish rail ferry that was converted into a state-of-the-art hospital ship. It will spend several months treating patients in Monrovia before moving on to Sierra Leone on a voyage that will take it around Africa.
    With six operating theatres on board, it has the capacity to carry out 7,000 operations a year including cataract and tumour removal, lens implants, cleft lip and palate reconstruction, orthopaedics and obstetric fistula repair.
    The ship is run by the international charity Mercy Ships which was created in 1978. The organisation sends ships like the Africa Mercy all over the the world to help disadvantaged people.
    Johnson-Sirleaf told the crew that a formal thank you speech had been prepared but she chose to speak from her heart instead.
    ''This prepared text that was made for me, but I won't read it because it doesn't take words put together to thank you. It doesn't take something that is so prepared and formal and official. It only takes knowing what you do, and I've been part of it," Johnson-Sirleaf said.
    "Last year Anastasis was here, we visited, we saw it and we felt what happened in the lives of young people and women, and all the people who came, and they left the ship completely changed. Not only changed physically, because of the treatment they received, but changed morally and spiritually," she added.
    The 'Africa Mercy' cost 62 million US dollars to buy and convert into a floating hospital. This was made possible with international support through cash donations and gifts in kind. 400 volunteer professionals, from 30 nations across the globe, make up the crew.
    "Today we have you here and we are so grateful that you could come, so you can see for yourselves how much we appreciate what has been done to serve our people," Johnson-Sirleaf continued.
    Liberia, Africa's oldest republic founded in 1847 by freed American slaves, is trying to recover from a devastating on-off 1989-2003 civil war that destroyed its infrastructure and public services.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register