On this week’s podcast, Dr Leo Cheng, Consultant in Oral, Maxillofacial and Head & Neck Surgery at St Bartholomew’s, The Royal London and Homerton University Hospitals, talks about the work of Mercy Ships. For more than 20 years, he has volunteered during his holidays on board the Africa Mercy, performing life-saving and life-changing operations.

This month, a new purpose-built ship, the Global Mercy, set sail for Africa from Rotterdam. The charity says that the new ship will more than double its surgical and training capacity (News, 9 July 2021).

Speaking in Rotterdam before the ship set sail, Princess Anne, who is a Patron of Mercy Ships, said: “A mixture of volunteers bring brilliant surgery, knowledge, and medical skills, from countries all over the world — but everybody who comes here has a skill and is happy to serve in whatever capacity will help the whole. The success Mercy Ships has had training doctors, dentists and medics to carry out the work in the future in their own countries — that is a real legacy.”

Watch a video of a talk that Dr Cheng gave at the Royal Albert Hall, in 2014, here.

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