Mercy Ships

Mercy Ships is a charity that provides free surgery to some of the world's poorest areas via hospital ships and contributes to building health capacity in low-income countries. Five billion people worldwide cannot access or afford safe surgery. Children, adolescents and adults suffer and die every day from treatable diseases. Not least in sub-Saharan Africa, where the shortage of doctors is significant. To change this discouraging statistic, Mercy Ships' two hospital ships dock in African countries and offer surgery, care and training in cooperation with host nations. The goal of Mercy Ships as a charity is to become redundant. At the same time as we perform surgical operations on board our hospital ships, we train local surgeons and nurses so that they can continue to help those in need as we sail on to the next country. It is through long-term collaborations, medical training and upgrading of hospitals and clinics that we create the conditions for sustainable development in Africa. One of our hospital ships is the former Danish Great Belt ferry Queen Ingrid, which has now been converted into the hospital ship Africa Mercy, the other is the newly built ship, Global Mercy.