The Surgery Ship

The UK premiere of The Surgery Ship, a documentary which follows the life transforming work of medical volunteers aboard the world’s largest charity hospital ship who provide free surgeries to desperate patients from poverty-stricken African nations.

The UK premiere of The Surgery Ship is being hosted by the Global Health Film Initiative on 16th March at 6.30pm.

The Surgery Ship is an Australian-made documentary which follows life aboard the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, the Africa Mercy. The floating hospital sails to some of the poorest countries in the world to deliver free, life-saving medical treatment and is run by international charity Mercy Ships, which has headquarters in the UK.

A team of Australian volunteer doctors and nurses joins an international crew heading for the Republic of Guinea in West Africa. After gaining independence from France in 1958, Guinea experienced half a century of extreme poverty whilst it struggled to become autonomous. As a result, many Guineans suffer from extraordinary medical conditions that are rare elsewhere, and because most people live on less than 75p a day, treatment is completely out of reach. They’ve simply had to live with debilitating and disfiguring conditions... until now.

The Africa Mercy’s Australian volunteers and their colleagues face profound professional and emotional challenges as they attempt to treat curious diseases they’ve seldom seen outside their textbooks. These surgeries call for innovative techniques, in order to bring about transformations from disfigurement, repair deformed limbs or congenital defects, and heal burns, fractures, and post-war injuries.

The Surgery Ship is a story about the everyday heroism of both Africans and the volunteers who travel from all over the world, and the human drive to rise above circumstances, to survive, and give the best of ourselves - even when there seems no end in sight.

The screening will be followed by a short panel discussion with the film's producer, Madeleine Hetherton, Mercy Ships UK Chairman, Henry Clarke, Mercy Ships UK volunteer, Peter McDermott and Mission Aviation Fellowship CEO Ruth Whitaker.