Mercy Hospital rescues babies, saves lives

Last month, the Mercy village outreach team encountered nine-month-old Mohamed Fofanah, desperately ill and deydrated. The team brought the child back to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe malaria and anemia. Mohamed received anti-malarial medicine and a blood transfusion, which could never have been done in the village. Without Mercy’s intervention, Mohamed would almost certainly have died.

​Malaria--which Doctors Without Borders calls "the other epidemic"--is one of the greatest causes of under-five mortality in Sierra Leone, especially deadly when a child's immune system is already compromised by malnutrition or parasitic infection. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of malaria in the world. Children are particularly susceptible to infection, illness and death from malaria, which contributes to an estimated twenty percent of child mortality.
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Early diagnosis and treatment of malaria reduces transmission of the disease and prevents deaths. In 2017 Mercy Hospital treated more than 8,000 people for malaria infection, both at the hospital and through village outreach, saving the lives of children and adults.

​In pursuit of the mission to reduce maternal and infant mortality, Mercy Hospital encourages women to give birth at the hospital, which greatly improves the outcome for mothers and babies. Last week these beautiful identical twins were delivered at Mercy.  Mother and babies are doing well!

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​Fatorma, a three-month old baby, had become severely dehydrated from a pneumonia infection, and was admitted to the hospital as a destitute because his parents had no means to pay for treatment. After three days of treatment and monitoring, little Fatorma was discharged and is doing well.