Mercy Ships, Bringing Hope and Healing

The 499-foot 16, 572 GRT Africa Mercy is the world’s largest charity hospital ship. The purpose-built hospital includes six state of the art operating rooms, intensive care and ward bed space for up to 78 patients. Originally built in Denmark in 1980, the newest Mercy Ship has a berth capacity for 484. Volunteer crew from more than 30 nations serve onboard.

The 522-foot Anastasis was our flag ship, and completed her first relief mission in 1982 to Guatemala. She and her crew of 400 primarily worked in Africa up until she was decommissioned in July 2007.

Acquired in 1994, the 265-foot Caribbean Mercy with her crew of 150 focused on the Caribbean basin and Central America with its Eye Surgery Unit. The ship was sold in 2006

Here are some quick facts about Mercy Ships:

• Mercy Ships has1,200 volunteer career staff and crew from 40+ nations, and 2,000 short-term volunteers annually
• Performed services valued at $748 million, impacting 2.16 million people
• Performed more than 41,000 operations such as cleft lip and palate, cataract removal, straightening of crossed eyes, orthopaedic and facial reconstruction
• Treated over 361,000 patients in village clinics with more than 408,000 medical procedures performed
• Treated over 79,000 dental patients with more than 206,000 dental procedures performed
• Educated 14,500 local health care workers, who have in turn trained multiple thousands in primary health care
• Trained local medical professionals in modern health care techniques
• Completed over 1,058 community development projects focusing on water and sanitation, education, infrastructure development and agriculture
• Completed over 560 port visits in 53 developing nations and 17 developed nations

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