British Journal of Surgery (BJS) has published an important medical paper about the work of Mercy Ships. The paper is an evaluation of our implementation of the WHO’s Surgical Safety Checklist in Benin in 2016/17, co-authored by Mercy Ships expert Dr Michelle White of Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Dr Nina Capo-Chichi, a surgeon in Benin,
The Checklist is a simple tool that has been repeatedly shown to improve surgical outcomes and reduce mortality and morbidity.
‘One of the greatest challenges we face in tackling this problem is how to take proven interventions, and implement them successfully, at scale in low-income settings.’ Dr Michelle White.
In Benin, Mercy Ships volunteer experts visited 36 hospitals and delivered three days of multidisciplinary checklist training at each site, teaching medical staff 
how to use the Checklist. The aim was to see how great an effect Mercy Ships could have by running intensive courses in Checklist training across a whole country, rather than spending six to 12 months in a single hospital. Would the healthcare providers still be using the Checklist up to four months later?
‘We found that checklist use increased from 31% pre-training to 89% at four months and this was sustained at 86% 12-18 months later. Also after 12-18 months, there was high fidelity use and high penetration shown by an improvement in hospital safety culture.’ Dr Nina Capo-Chichi.
This evaluation, published in the BJS, forms part of the ongoing assessment of Mercy Ships field services in Benin. Assessing our work in this way enables us to improve the delivery of our projects and connect our work to tangible outcomes and impact subsequent field services; offer better healthcare strategy advice to host nations’ governments, and provide information to other non-governmental organisations working in low and middle-income countries.
The paper also stands with a growing body of work led by female medics and jointly with professionals in both Western and Sub-Saharan Africa – a hallmark of the innovative and collaborative approach Mercy Ships is proud to promote.
See a video summary and read the full paper ‘Implementation and evaluation of nationwide scale-up of the Surgical Safety Checklist’
‘Leaving a legacy of lasting change is crucial, so in addition to providing direct medical care on our hospital ship during a ten-month field service, Mercy Ships implements a programme focused on health system-strengthening and quality improvement across the whole country, with the goal of improving the medical care provided for generations to come,’ stated Dr Peter Linz, International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships.
