What Happens on a Hospital Ship when the Hospital is Closed?

This picture was taken last year during ship yard. The Ship was taken out of the water to clean and repair the underside. This is the after photo when the Africa Mercy was looking its best. Photo Credit: Katie Callow

Hospital ward clean and secured for sail.

Roughly 2 months ago the last Cameroonian patients were discharged from the Africa Mercy and the deep clean and securement of the hospital began. After a beautiful sail to the Canary Islands, Spain the ship entered into a period of ship yard.  While no one on board would complain about the location for our ship yard (Las Palmas is beautiful) the Africa Mercy’s time here is not to give the crew a vacation. Ship yard is a very important time for renovations and updates that are vital to the efficient running of a ship/hospital, renovations that cannot be done docked in Africa and loaded down with patients. During ship yard the faces change as specialist workers and contractors file through, using their talents and skills to transform patients’ lives hundreds of miles away. These workers may never see the lives that they have changed, but without their service the ship wouldn’t be able to sail to the countries we serve.

Refinishing of the staircase during ship yard period. 

Ship Yard for me has been a bitter sweet time. For most of the last two months the ship has been without air-conditioning, and random power or water outages mean that we might go 24 hours being unable to flush our toilets, but it’s been very lovely to walk down to the beach in the evening after work or have the conveniences of a western grocery store.  Some of my closest friends on the ship have finished their commitments at various points during the summer so most of my free time has been spent making memories and saying good bye. Transitioning to the ship without certain faces has been difficult, but it is also giving me the chance to form deeper relationships with other friends and some familiar faces from the first year I was here have returned after taking the last year off, so I am excited to be with them again.

The Ship Yard hospitality team 

So what is a nurse doing on a hospital ship that is no longer a hospital, but a construction zone? No I haven’t been sleeping on the beach, though I was able to take advantage of the cheap airfare to Europe and stay with a couple friends for a much needed get away for and a week off work. For the majority of this ship yard I decided to stay and work in our hospitality department on board. This means that I have been very busy welcoming and orientating new arrivals onto the ship, helping with guest functions, doing some

Keeping up to date with our continuing education. We were
blessed have an instructor come and offer advanced and
pediatric life support classes for the long term nurses on board. 

deep cleaning of cabins, and many, many other random duties. I’ve been staying busy, but while I will be happy to get back to the hospital and caring for patients again, I have also really enjoyed working with the other hostesses and being a part of the hospitality department.


What’s next? As I type, the ship is sailing to Conakry, Guinea. The ship had been making plans to revisit Guinea a few years ago, but had to make the difficult decision to postpone their trip when Ebola threatened the safety of the ship. The Ebola outbreak claimed the lives of many medical staff in a country already struggling to provide for the needs of their people. Mercy Ship’s goal, besides the surgeries we do every day, will be to use the 10 months we are there to help strengthen the skills of those healthcare professionals left so they have access to the tools needed to build up their healthcare services.

The link below is for my American Family and Friends who have been patiently (or more likely impatiently) waiting to watch the Surgery Ship Series that was filmed during my first year with Mercy Ships. National Geographic has finally made it available to watch online through your cable provider. Don't have a cable provider? The series is also streaming on Hulu!!!

Watch all 8 episodes of the Surgery Ship!

While I am currently serving with Mercy Ships the ideas and opinions expressed here are my own. Mercy Ships has not reviewed nor do they endorse the content written within this blog.