Mercy Ships has been selected as the official charity partner of the British Dental Health Foundation’s ‘National Smile Month’, the UK’s largest and longest running oral health campaign, which takes place between May 18 and June 18.
The aim of National Smile Month is to ultimately improve oral health through education and awareness raising. This corresponds closely with the work of Mercy Ships, an international charity which uses a hospital ship, the Africa Mercy, currently docked in Madagascar, to deliver free health care and education to the world’s forgotten poor.
Paul Hellyer and all those who have volunteered as part of the Mercy Ships dental team know that a smile goes a long way; however, dental services are almost non-existent in many of the countries the charity visits. A major part of Mercy Ships work therefore focuses on oral health, treating around 100 patients a day, in addition to working to improve oral health in every country it visits through provision of dental hygiene education and the training of local personnel.
Paul volunteered on the Africa Mercy whilst she was docked in Liberia in 2008 and for a second time in Sierra Leone in 2010.
Paul said: “Mercy Ships is remarkable in the way that the volunteers also work to train local healthcare workers and therefore the work of the charity serves not only the present needs of the country, but also the future needs - what a legacy to be able to leave behind!
“My experiences from the ship will stay with me forever and have undoubtable benefitted my dental skills, knowledge and therefore my career here in the UK. When you are on the ship you have got to think outside the box quite a bit which encourages me to come up with other solutions to problems, and that’s definitely an invaluable skill I have developed from volunteering with Mercy Ships.
“One of the most memorable experiences I have from my time in Sierra Leone was a night when myself and a few fellow volunteers decided to take a taxi from the ship into town for some dinner. The taxi driver didn’t know where the restaurant was and we were very lost. Sierra Leone Krio people are naturally very obliging and helpful but everyone we stopped to ask for directions sent us a different way!
“Eventually we stopped to ask a local man who immediately opened the car door and peered inside much to our surprise. He then broke into a broad smile and reached across to shake my hand, thanking me for the dental surgery I’d recently performed on him. ‘I am better now’, he said.
“Africa Mercy is a busy ship and with nearly 100 patients per day sometimes you forget the impact your help has on each individual. Here in the UK many of us take routine NHS check-ups with our dentist for granted but for many across Africa such treatment and dental care can be lifesaving. That night was a nice reminder of the importance of what Mercy Ship and its volunteers do.”
The ship is currently docked in Madagascar, where over 90 per cent of the population lives on just 75p a day. With regards to healthcare, there are only two physicians and three hospital beds available for every 10,000 people, and therefore the situation is rather desperate.
The Africa Mercy was converted from a Danish rail ferry into a state of the art hospital ship. It is staffed by up to 400 volunteers from 40 different nations – including surgeons and nurses, cooks and engineers – who pay for the privilege to work and provide free medical service to Madagascar’s population of 22m, in addition to carrying out mentoring and training programmes in the local villages.