Bringing Hope and Healing

Mercy Ships provides transformational health care, relief aid, community development and sustainable change in developing nations to meet the immediate as well as the long-term needs of the poor.

Operating a hospital ship crewed by volunteers, serving field locations around the world, Mercy Ships works to increase the capacity of each host nation to serve the dire needs of the local population. Mercy Ships freely serves the poor without regard to race, gender or religion.

In addition to the thousands of free specialized surgeries offered onboard the ships, community development projects take place in the surrounding villages in collaboration with local partners. These sustainable programs target areas of health, education, water and agriculture. 

Since 1978, Mercy Ships has provided services in developing nations valued at more than 834 million US$, including the following:

• performed more than 56,000 life-changing operations such as cleft lip and palate repair, cataract removal, orthopaedic procedures, facial reconstruction and obstetric fistula repair.

• treated over 520,000 patients in village clinics.

• treated over 98,000 dental patients with more than 243,000 dental procedures performed.

• taught 138,000 local people in basic health care.

• trained over 29,000 local health-care professionals who have in turn trained many others.

• completed over 1,095 community development projects focusing on water and sanitation, education, infrastructure development and agriculture.