Mary

Remember Mary? She's the 15 year old Liberian girl who had surgery on the ship last Outreach to relieve her of a locked jaw. She was our adopted patient too, and she's kept in contact with us since then. Yesterday she came to visit, and told us that her Uncle (her guardian) has gone upcountry looking for work (where her parents are already), and she is living on her own in Monrovia. Poor girl - she has basically been abandoned by her family, and is trying to live on the goodwill of her neighbours. She is 16 in a month, so too old to go into an orphanage. Our hearts are full of sorrow for her. Unbelievably, we are the nearest thing she has right now to a family. Sally and our ward nurses have been more of a mother to her of late than her real one. What a sad state of affairs. Olly