Nurse of the Week: Surgical Nurse Rebecca Roma Offers Hope and Healing to Patients Aboard Mercy Ships

Our Nurse of the Week is Rebecca Roma, a floor nurse in the cardiovascular surgical unit at Catholic Medical Center, who used her vacation time to volunteer aboard Mercy Ships. The international charity operates floating hospitals that provide free medical care in some of the poorest spots around the world.

While volunteering for another organization at 15 years old, Roma met a nurse who told her about Mercy Ships. Their mission captured her attention and she never forgot about it. Now 29, Roma recently returned to New Hampshire after serving on Mercy Ships for eight weeks.

Roma’s ship was docked in Cameroon, Africa, where the medical personnel perform life-saving surgeries and life-changing treatments on local residents. Volunteers also provide training to local doctors and nurses. Many patients in the region have medical conditions that distort their appearance, and for many, Mercy Ships is the first place they’ve come where someone welcomes them and takes care of them.

Roma tells UnionLeader.com, “The whole mission here is to bring hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor.”

Roma went to nursing school because she knew she wanted to do something that involved helping people. Even though it took almost 15 years, she never lost her dream of serving on a Mercy Ship. In February, she took a leave of absence to serve eight weeks aboard the ship, using vacation time to pull it off.

Now that her tenure on the ship has ended, Roma recalls experiencing firsthand how the kind of medical care so often taken for granted at home can change lives elsewhere. To learn more about Roma’s volunteer work as a nurse aboard Mercy Ships, visit here.