Screening day

Well as promised, here is a little bit about the Liberia screening day we had last Thursday 3rd of May. It was my second screening since arriving on the Anastasis, and it could not have been more different than Ghana!

The day started early for me - with a 4.45am wake up to be ready to leave for a sports stadium in central Monrovia at 5.30am. I was assigned a different job from last year, instead of taking patient histories, they decided to use those of us with Max-Fax and Plastic surgical skills for another purpose.


When we arrived the line of patients stretched down the road. Three of my colleagues had been at the stadium all night turning away those people who we couldn't help, but there was still a significant line of people.

Although Mercy ships has been to Liberia twice before, this was the first screening the UN has allowed us to do. There is a risk of rioting when large crowds get together, so the UN and us were very carefull to make the day pass calmly! We were allocated a contingent of UN soldiers from India, and another allocation of UNMIL police. There were more machine guns present than nurses, but I guess it is the way things are when you are living in a fragile peace.


As we have already been operating for seven weeks, we were screening for the remainder of the operating slots. The Africa Mercy has 6 operating rooms to our 3, so we were able to book almost twice as many operations in than before.

Back to my job - I was one of 4 nurses who 'walked the line', with the basic instruction of pulling people out of the line who had conditions that we could not treat and giving them the bad news that we were unable to help them. It also thankfully involved pulling people out who we could help and sending them further up the line to the doctors and specialist nurses.

What a job. How many Liberians did I say no to that day? Countless numbers. Although only about 500 people turned up (after 3000 in Ghana), we filled only about 200 surgery slots, so the rest of those people we were unable to help.

Many had come with stomach pains and back pain, which as a surgical hospital, we do not manage. Others we were able to send away to the dental or the eye clinics for free Mercy Ship treatment.


Some however were just surgeries that we, and many of the other NGO's here, cannot do. A little baby with Hydrocephalis (water on the brain) we had to turn away as we have no Neurosurgical capabilities, and some large tumours that were malignant (cancerous), we also had to turn away. Those that are turned away we offer to pray for, and many agree to this.

There were of course many that we are able to help, and who were scheduled for surgery when the Africa Mercy Arrives at the end of May.


Less people attended screening than when we were in Ghana, but that can be attributed to the difference in population (4 mil in Liberia, 20 mil in Ghana), the fact the ship has been here three years in a row now, and that many people may live too far away from Monrovia. We have a number of slots left, which is great because we are able to offer surgery to those who simply turn up at the port.

It was a very humbling day, and a difficult one. I was glad to be challenged a bit more with my nursing role, but at the same time was nervous about the responsibility I had to tell hopefull and desperate people that we were unable to help them. The second half of my day entailed taking patient histories - a welcome job as these people were most likely getting surgery - a much more positive job to end the day!


You just have to focus on those we were able to offer help to, and there are a lot of them. We just have to pray that Liberia can put all the pieces together and be able to offer its population the medical care that we so very often take for granted in the west.