August was a a month of unknowns for the Africa Mercy, when and where it would go. Read more about the ongoing Ebola crisis. Sharon
(This is a running email post written by a volunteer nurse serving on the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship that travels the African coast).
25 August 2014
"Now what?"
In the normal course of things, we spend a couple of months in Gran Canaria for shipyard maintenance, and then we sail to Tenerife (another Canary island about six hours away) to restock supplies before sailing to our next field service. This summer, the ship did in fact get its scheduled maintenance and then sailed to Tenerife. (That's where I rejoined the ship.). Plans changed when Ebola hit Nigeria; we delayed our scheduled departure for Benin for a couple of weeks to watch the developments.
In the normal course of things, we spend a couple of months in Gran Canaria for shipyard maintenance, and then we sail to Tenerife (another Canary island about six hours away) to restock supplies before sailing to our next field service. This summer, the ship did in fact get its scheduled maintenance and then sailed to Tenerife. (That's where I rejoined the ship.). Plans changed when Ebola hit Nigeria; we delayed our scheduled departure for Benin for a couple of weeks to watch the developments.
Meanwhile, on the sail between islands, we discovered a
problem with one of our propellers. As a
result, the ship had trouble going forward and trouble stopping--probably
something that should be attended to, right?
It turned out to be quite a puzzle. For two weeks, the engineers hunted for the
problem. Finally, digging deep into the guts of the thing, they discovered that
a couple of O rings were defective.
Replacing O rings sounds easy--but we're talking about massive equipment
buried in the bowels of a ship. To
repair it, we had to sail back to the shipyard, and they say it will take two
weeks of work to dismantle and repair the propeller. And so, now it will be at least another week
of delay. Tentatively, they hope to sail to Africa around September
5th, if all goes well.
If you've been following the Ebola crisis, you know that
the problem has been escalating dramatically.
Previous outbreaks have been located in small rural villages, where they
were quarantined, stayed local, and petered out. This outbreak is in major
cities, in populations that are mobile, and it just keeps growing. Guinea seems to be leveling off, finally, but
Liberia's problem has gone exponential I
can scarcely imagine the horrors going on there. It reminds me of the Black
Death that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages.
(Well, it's certainly not THAT bad yet...)
Lagos just reported two more cases, and they are second
tier, one step removed from Patrick Sawyer's caregivers. I was very much hoping that Nigeria had
reacted quickly enough to contain the outbreak to include only those who were
initially exposed to Patrick. Now that
it's gone to another level, will they be able to contain it at this point? It seems very touch and go to me.
Both Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo have now
reported cases of Ebola, but apparently they are independent outbreaks of
different strains, not a spread of the West African strain. Possibly it is "business as usual"
for these countries, where outbreaks occur most years in rural areas and are contained
with quarantine. Perhaps it is only our
awareness of the problem that is different.
So, when and where are we going? How will we conduct business once we are
"there"? Will we do mass
screenings, or find patients some other way?
Etc., etc. So many
questions...and no answers yet. And so,
we wait and pray.
--
Marilyn Neville
