![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Aminata-and-baby-Memunatu-with-tumor-SWNS-Mercy-Ships.jpg\")
Aminata and baby Memunatu with tumor- SWNS \/ Mercy Ships<\/p>\n Aminata and baby Memunatu with tumor- SWNS \/ Mercy Ships<\/p>\n
A British surgeon removed a life-threatening tumor from a baby\u2019s neck that was as big as her entire face.<\/p>\n
The lump has been growing since she was just five months old, but when her mother, Aminata, took her to the local hospital in Sierra Leone doctors told her she was too young for surgery.<\/p>\n
By the time she was ten-months-old her family began to fear the worst until Aminata bumped into a volunteer who works for Mercy Ships, a healthcare charity that operates hospitals aboard ships.<\/p>\n
Global Mercy was docked in Freetown, and when the staff saw how the tumor would eventually suffocate her, they immediately agreed to perform surgery aboard their ship for free.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very worried for my child,\u201d said Aminata. \u201cShe\u2019s so little for such a condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, she was admitted and prepped for the meticulous four-hour surgery performed by Royal London Hospital\u2019s Maxillofacial Head and Neck Surgeon, Dr. Leo Cheng.<\/p>\n
He successfully removed the tumor, effectively saving baby Memunatu\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
When Aminata first took her baby daughter to hospital, it was wrongly believed to be just a symptom of her having a cold, but the tumor continued to grow.<\/p>\n
Miraculously, during one visit to a children\u2019s hospital, Aminata and Memunatu met a Mercy Ships volunteer, South African Anne-Marie Van Tonder, who immediately recognizing the critical situation, and referred Aminata for a surgery on the ship<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dr. Cheng confirmed that without the surgery, her condition would have continued to worsen, affecting her ability to swallow, eat, speak, or even cry.<\/p>\n The tumor was compressing Memunatu\u2019s airway and the medical team worked with skillful precision during the anesthesia process to manage her airways during the challenging intubation. Once under anesthesia, the slow, meticulous surgery took nearly four hours.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every single millimeter I was estimating, calculating, and trying to prevent any bleeding,\u201d Cheng said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt went very slowly but very positively\u2014thank God.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the successful surgery, Memunatu and her mother remained on the ship until the swelling subsided and she recovered.<\/p>\n Back at home, weeks after her surgery, her neck has healed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen she was discharged, it was such a great joy for me to see Memunatu\u2019s face,\u201d said Anne-Marie.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tumor had grown so fast, almost the size of her head, hiding her beautiful face\u2026 her eyes were so full of light and joy.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2023, the Global Mercy ship<\/a> has provided more than 3,630 free surgeries in sub-Saharan Africa to people who are robbed of years of healthy life due to conditions that are easily treatable.<\/p>\n \u201cIf not for this surgery that Mercy Ships did for my child, she would have lost her life.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE MERCY SHIPS SUCCESS: SHARE THE STORY to Uplift a Weary World On Social Media\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aminata and baby Memunatu with tumor- SWNS \/ Mercy Ships A British surgeon removed a life-threatening tumor from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,10881,71775,17846,137,500,19900,166271,30893],"class_list":{"0":"post-288649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charity","11":"tag-compassion","12":"tag-free","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-healthcare","15":"tag-hospitals","16":"tag-sierra-leone","17":"tag-volunteer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Baby-Memunatu-with-nurses-aboard-Global-Mercy-Ship-SWNS.jpg\")
Baby Memunatu with nurses aboard Global Mercy ship \u2013 SWNS<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Baby-Memunatu-with-mom-after-surgery-Mercy-Ship-SWNS.jpg\")
Baby Memunatu with mom after surgery \u2013 Mercy Ship \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
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