For most people it is an opportunity of a lifetime.
However, for Barrhead resident Linda Klufas her latest trip to Madagascar, Africa, with Mercy Ships is just one of many trips of a lifetime she has the fortune of going on and hopes she will be able to continue to go on.
Mercy Ships is an international charity which provides free health care, community development projects, community health education, mental health programs, agriculture projects, and palliative care for terminally ill patients all based from a hospital ship docked in a port city of whatever country the organization is helping. Mercy Ships has operated in more than 57 developing nations and 18 developed nations around the world. Its current focus is the countries of Africa. On average, a ship is docked at one location for about 10 months.
Earlier this year Klufas, visited the country as part of a five-week mission to help Mercy Ships provide the residents of Tamatave, Madagascar and its surrounding area with health care, more specifically surgery. In previous stints with Mercy Ships. Some of Klufas’ previous destinations have included Honduras, Liberia, Togo and the Congo, among others.
Klufas is a semi-retired registered nurse with more than 35 years of experience, mostly working at the Barrhead Healthcare Centre. About eight years ago, she retired from full-time nursing in Barrhead and now works on a casual basis at the Westlock Healthcare Centre in the operating room, as well as volunteering at the Barrhead Continuing Care Centre (W.R. Keir Care).
“It is truly life changing. That’s what attracted me to Mercy Ships in the first place. What we do — surgeries — makes a permanent, positive change in our patients’ lives.”
Klufas said, adding often when a charity comes into a country the impact it makes on residents’ lives is temporary. “It’s not just a band-aid solution where a doctor might prescribe a month of medication to a person, for example, high blood pressure, and knowing when the medication is finished their problem will return. Most of the people we do surgery for the solution is permanent.”
The majority of surgeries the Mercy Ships health care team performs include cataract, maxillofacial (injuries and defects in the head, neck, face, jaws and the hard and soft tissues), cleft lips and palates, orthopedics, reconstructive and plastic surgery, as well as general surgeries.
“In many of those countries (Africa), anyone with a deformity is considered demon possessed,” Klufas said, adding she has heard stories from patients where the people of a village have told the parents of a baby with a cleft lip to leave them in the forest to die. “They are totally shunned and these are the types of people we are able to help and change their lives forever.”
In the some of cases, even though medical care is available in the area where the residents live, it is unattainable due to the cost of the operation.
“People don’t realize how lucky we are in Canada and what real poverty looks like,” she said, adding that most people in the countries where Mercy Ships visit live on $2 a day or less. “If it is available at a hospital a cataract surgery costs about $100. Considering the $2, on which you have to actually live on, how could a person save that much? It is impossible.”
As for the quality of the care the Mercy Ships’ patients receive, Klufas said it would rival any hospital in Canada. Their current ship, The Africa Mercy, is 152 meters long, old rail-ferry ship, which the organization got from a United Kingdom shipyard and renovated.
In many ways, she said, the equipment on the ship is better than what is at the Barrhead Health Care Centre.
“For example we have a CT scanner on board,” she said, adding the ship had to be well equipped because their patients can’t be referred to another facility.
Another benefit of having Mercy Ships visit a region, is that it often raises the quality of the area’s health care long after the organization leaves.
“We have medical professionals, doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, etc, from all over the world and often local health professionals will come on board and assist with surgeries as a way to improve their skills,” Klufas said, adding she has witnessed some of the improvements first hand.
During her time off, on one of her other trips she had the opportunity to visit a local hospital.
“The conditions, to be kind, were less than ideal,” she said, adding after some of the local health professionals visited the ship they took what they learned and transferred it to their hospital. “They sent us a picture of one of the operating rooms after and it was an amazing transformation.”
In addition to the health facilities (five operating theatres and an 82-bed ward), the ship also has accommodations for the more than 450 members of the ships crew. Besides all the medical personnel needed, because everyone lives on the ship during their time at port, a number of different volunteers are needed. For example, her husband, Wayne, who has volunteered with Mercy Ships on two occasions, served as an assistant cook.
“It can be pretty cramped at times,” she said, adding with so many people on board water conservation is important. During her last trip, she shared one bathroom with six other women. “You got fairly good at having a two minute shower.”
Despite the cramped quarters, Klufas said the ship has a number of other amenities, such as lounges, a small swimming pool and perhaps the staff’s favourite, a Starbucks.
When asked if she ever thought she was in any danger, Klufas said no.
“On board the ship we have security and it is pretty stringent, and during my time off (as an operating nurse she generally had weekends off) as long as you were smart about it and traveled in a group and didn’t flaunt anything, I felt perfectly safe. I would take the same precautions if I were going to Edmonton or any other Canadian location.”
One of the reasons she believes it is safe for Mercy Ships’ personnel is before the organization goes to a country they first must be invited and the country has to help with security.
And if for some reason the area were to become unstable, she said, the ship is ready to leave in as little as an hour if the need arises.
Unfortunately, Klufas said, although she would recommend volunteering with Mercy Ships to anyone, for some people it can be difficult.
Besides the time commitment, on average from four to six weeks, it can be expensive. Klufas has paid for her transportation to and from whichever port the ship has been docked, as well as for her on board expenses for all her trips.
She said some of the people she met on board the ship paid for the trip by fundraising.
“I just can’t overemphasize how lucky we are. To be able to live where we live, have adequate health care that is free, is a blessing. And for me, I just want to pass on some of the things I have been blessed with. To be able to do something for people who aren’t as fortunate is as rewarding an experience as one can have,” Klufas said, adding she is already planning her next Mercy Ships trip to Benin, South Africa.
More information on Mercy Ships can be found at www.mercyships.ca
