Operating Room

The Operating Rooms onboard our ships are the central focus of the whole organisation. What Mercy Ships does is encapsulated by what happens in the Operating Rooms under the supervision of our Surgeons, Operating Room Nurses, and Anesthesia Providers and Assistants.

The number of patients who have been operated on in our Operating Rooms number the many thousands, with over 100,000 surgical procedures having been performed in the history of Mercy Ships.

Our Operating Room department includes Anesthesia, Post Anesthetic Care Unit (PACU), Sterilization, and our Biomed Technicians.

Staffed by volunteers from all over the world who welcome new volunteers every week, the Operating Room department has the highest turnover in a field service of any other department, meaning they must be as organized as possible, led by the Operating Room Manager. The surgical schedule is a very carefully designed program, in liaison with the rest of the Hospital, including the Screening department who select and schedule patients according to what surgical specialty is running at any given time throughout the field service.

The Africa Mercy has four Operating Rooms, with the Global Mercy boasting six Operating Rooms, and includes a training simulation operating room as part of our Medical Capacity Building programs.

There is plenty of teaching of local professionals happening in our Operating Rooms, with each Surgeon often working with a local Surgeon learning more about the specialty being performed to continue the work after the ship departs. Mentoring in Anesthesia is a common feature also.

Our Operating Room team operates to a very high standard, performing surgeries not performed in developed nations as they see conditions often not seen as they are treated very early on. Our patients often have conditions that have been neglected for so long, that they have become a much larger challenge.