Last week's Guest Speaker: Alan Burrell, Mercy Ships

Posted by Franz Huber 
on Oct 11, 2015
 
Mercy Ship's Captain Mike Hughes and Managing Director Alan Burrell
 
Many of you would have come across the enormous good that is generated by Rotary Australia’s ROMAC (Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children).  ROMAC’s major function is to bring severely disfigured children to Australia, where a team of volunteer surgeons perform near miracle surgery to restore their faces and their bodies back to normalcy.  After their usually several months’ stay, they go back to their community. 
 
Mercy Ships tackles the same issue on a grand scale: a fleet of 4 hospital ships of sizeable proportions: Six operating theatres, recovery/intensive care, 82 patient beds.  Annual capacity of some 7000 surgical procedures per annum (that is an average of almost 20 each and every day!). All manned by volunteers from doctors, nurses right through to crew, caterers and cleaners, since its foundation in 1978, the organization has accomplished 576 port visits in 56 developing nations, treating in excess of 2.5 Million patients.  Read that again: 2.5 Million patients!.  As Alan explained, the ships are, in essence, “Hotel” ships, catering for patients to stay on board until ready to be released into their community again. 
 
As the saying goes, a picture is a thousand words.  A video is ten thousand… Alan, the Managing Director of the organization, started off with a brief video. (You can view them online: https://www.mercyships.org.au/ms-tv-and-videos.html)
 
But it is not just removal of tumors (such as shown in the picture on right), orthopedic surgery, dental care or eye surgery where Mercy Ships is involved: for example, they were involved in the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa which resulted in 28,448 reported cases and 11,311 people dead.
 
A new ship is in the process of being built. It comes with a sizeable price tag: $150 Million. So far, $85 Million has been raised.  There are people with visions. And then there are people with grand visions.  In the words of C J Dennis: “I dips me lid”.