Anne Hee Andersen volunteers as a ward nurse aboard the Africa Mercy
The dressings are the straightforward part of the job.
Many patients arrive having been avoided by their own communities for years. That is treated on the ward as seriously as the surgical site.
Ward nursing on a hospital ship
Anne Hee Andersen is a Danish nurse volunteering on the wards, where patients stay for days or weeks: observations, wound care, pain management, feeding, mobilising, and preparing people to go home.
Patients often arrive without much spoken language in common with the crew. A great deal of the work is done through translators, gesture and time.
What surgery does not fix by itself
A patient who has been hidden away, refused work, or excluded from school does not simply resume ordinary life the day the sutures come out. Rebuilding the expectation of being treated normally takes the weeks on the ward.
Nurses are the role most needed
Mercy Ships recruits more nurses than any other profession. Ward, theatre, recovery, paediatrics and infection control experience all transfer directly, and placements range from a few weeks to several years.
