Nurse takes a year off unpaid to volunteer on floating hospital off the coast of Africa
One of our nurses has taken a year off unpaid to volunteer on a floating hospital off the coast of Africa.
Junior Sister Sarah Harley, who works on the paediatric critical care unit at Queen’s Medical Centre, started her career as a student nurse at the QMC in 2005. She has joined a 450-strong international cohort of volunteers on the Africa Mercy off the coast of Madagascar.
Mercy Ships is a faith-based international development organisation that deploys hospital ships to some of the poorest countries, delivering free healthcare to people who don’t have access to safe, affordable surgery.
The charity operates on a three-pronged approach:
- offering direct medical care and surgery to local people
- training and mentoring local health professionals
- improving healthcare infrastructure
The Africa Mercy contains five operating rooms, a four-bed recovery area, intensive care for up to five patients, and 80 beds. It houses about 400 volunteer crew members from around 60 nationalities.
This isn’t Sarah’s first time on the ship; she spent two months in Senegal in 2022 – and vowed to go back. A friend who had volunteered urged her to apply, saying she would thrive and adding “they need nurses like you Sarah.”
But at the end of the two months, Sarah didn’t want to leave. “I’d got used to the way of working and made lots of friends… so I always knew I’d like to go back.”
During her time in Senegal, Sarah helped treat six-year-old Sira, who had bowed legs. Sira and her grandma had travelled for 12 hours to get to the ship. After a successful operation, and a 12-week rehabilitation journey at the Hope centre – the Hospital Outpatients Extension – Sira astounded everyone by taking up football.
The Hope Centre cares for patients before and after surgery; building them up – as many are malnourished – and then giving them physio, speech and language therapy, etc, after their operations.
“It is amazing to see patients having life-transforming surgery,” said Sarah. “One child had a new jaw constructed. She had a large tumour, so they removed the tumour and put a metal plate in – then brought her back two months later and made her a new jaw out of her hip bone.”
“You see things that you don’t see here – I’ll be looking after adults as well as children (I’d previously only cared for adults during COVID-19) – and you have to be prepared to step outside of your comfort zone.”
Sarah thanked her family, friends, colleagues, and church for their support, which has allowed her to take a year’s unpaid leave.
“Having the knowledge, experience and skills, and seeing how much need there is there, and how little they have compared to our patients here – I had to go back.
“I’ve been looking after some lovely patients. I have just finished four night shifts so working hard but enjoying getting to know the patients. There is a lovely culture on the ward of patients supporting each other and we end each evening with a dance party in the corridor between the wards.”