Mercy Ships - Peter Montgomery

The subject of Peter Montgomery's  talk was the Mercy Ships.

Peter is a Rotarian who has given up a lot of his time bringing the Mercy Ships to the attention of Rotary Clubs as well as doing a lot of personal fund raising, including three sponsored marathons – London, New York and Paris. For his work on behalf of Mercy Ships he was made a Paul Harris Fellow, as was his wife, who as a senior nurse has volunteered to work on the Africa Mercy, the only Mercy Ship currently operating. Other ships have come and gone.  A second and larger ship is currently being fitted out.

A Mercy Ship is a floating hospital, equipped to carry out a wide range of surgical operations as well as ophthalmic and dental treatments. Mercy Ships was founded in 1978.

The basic concept is that 50% of the world’s population live within 100 miles of a sea port and the objective is to bring modern medicine to people in need. 100,000 surgical operations have been carried out and 2.7 million people from 56 developing countries have benefited.

The organisation carries out a lot of advance research and preparation in consultation with local health authorities and also provides training for local staff.

Africa Mercy carries a crew of 1300 of more than 40 nationalities of whom half are medical staff. All are volunteers paying their own travel costs to get to the ship and on-board costs including food. They cover their costs by private fund raising. Only the captain is a salaried employee – a requirement for insurance purposes. He is paid $1 a year. 

Peter showed some remarkable shots of patients who had been successfully treated.

In answer to a question, Peter told us that the whole operation was financed from fund raising, there being no government funding. He referred to support from Ann Gloag, from Rotary and from corporate bodies and there had also been a major contribution from shipping companies.

On behalf of the Club Ken Lindsay thanked Peter for a fascinating talk and a wonderful example of service above self.