Mobile Surgical Unit

December 2, 2015 General

The “food truck” concept has taken off in recent years (think Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, and more). It’s likely some of America’s best grub now comes on wheels.

But an operating room on wheels?

Meet Mission to Heal’s Mobile Surgical Unit (MSU).

The MSU launched this fall and is currently on its way to the Philippines. It is an on-the-go operating room – an operating room on wheels, if you will – that will allow Mission to Heal to provide surgical care to individuals in the most remote regions of the world.

Why is the MSU important?

Mission to Heal invested in this new technology to alleviate two major problems:

  1. Non-sterile working conditions (operating spaces)
  2. Accessibility to health care

Doc G, the founder of Mission to Heal, has operated in a variety of spaces. He’s performed surgeries under trees, outside dirt-floored huts, and within reclaimed prisons. The MSU offers something he’s never had before: a consistent, sterile, high-tech surgical space.

You can learn more about the MSU – and see it live! – here, in a recent interview on WOOD TV8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can also learn more about the importance of mobile surgery here, including how it will aid 80 million people per year who face financial hardship from needing surgical care.

MSU’s are a major step in the right direction:

“To achieve the recently approved global development goals, world leaders must explicitly develop systems to bring access to safe, affordable and timely surgery to those who need it.”

And we’re excited to be a part of it.

In Service,

Mission to Heal

You can review a timeline of events that took place with the MSU below:

  1.  Ambulance and trailer were bought two-three years ago
  2. Larry Gerbens, Jim DeGraaf, and Steven Vryhof fetched them from Iowa on December 30
  3. Trailers were displayed at the showing of We Are The Ones at Celebration Cinema that spring
  4. They took a trip out East for showings and supplies
  5. Emergency Vehicles Plus started the retrofit end of July.  Done end of September
  6. Ambulance detailed by Ken DeGroot
  7. Displayed in GR at Art Prize: WOOD TV interview and Calvin College
  8. Displayed at American College of Surgeon’s Congress in Chicago first week of October
  9. Some final repairs and renovations mid-October
  10. Picked up by trucking company and taken to Long Beach
  11. Shipped out to Philippines October 30, expecting to arrive in Philippines first week of December
  12. Additional equipment (from Big Brothers Foundation Pittsburgh) may come in separate container
  13. Team 1 (with a dozen Calvin students) December 26 to mid-January
  14. Team 2 (Daniel and GW peers) February
  15. Then MSU gets shipped to Mongolia for July August mission
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