A WOMAN in need of complex medical treatment travelled three days by canoe, ferry, and car for life-saving surgery on board a hospital ship run by the Christian charity Mercy Ships.

Theogette, 50, from a remote part of northern Madagascar, had lived with a slow-growing benign tumour in her jaw for ten years, which was gradually preventing her from eating and threatening her breathing. The mother-of-three had been abandoned by her husband and was shunned by her community, as the tumour, which began after a tooth removal, grew along her jawline.

Theogette said: “People said I was sick and contagious. They influenced my husband and he left me.”

She continued to try to work on a farm to earn money to provide for her children, although she was often in pain, and suffered stigma and isolation.

She was put in touch with Mercy Ships through her nephew Ronaldo, who is a medical student, and travelled hundreds of miles to the ship, the Africa Mercy, to be assessed by surgeons. When she arrived, she was undernourished and underweight, owing to the difficulty that the tumour had caused her in eating.

Without complex surgery, she would face a “slow, suffocating death”, doctors warned.

Leo Cheng, a surgeon from Royal London Hospitals (Podcast, 18 March 2022), performed Theogette’s surgery on the ship. Mr Cheng said: “Theogette’s tumour not only affected her appearance, but her function of speech, communication, chewing, swallowing, and breathing. If it were not for Mercy Ships, she could have died by slow suffocation.”

After the surgery, a clinical supervisor at Mercy Ships, Ali Herbert, said: “There was this incredible moment when Theogette looked in the mirror and put her hand up to her face. Then she realised the tumour wasn’t there any more and her hand could move much closer to her face again.”

In Madagascar, only 20 per cent of the population has access to surgery. The vast majority of people cannot afford such treatment.

Mercy Ships has been sending hospital ships on missions to Madagascar since 1996. The ships offer surgery and treatment for head and neck conditions, paediatric patients, plastic surgery, and ophthalmology. Doctors from Mercy Ships also work with the government to offer training and mentoring to surgeons in the country.