Well, what a surprise: the NHS is in the news again. Following the publication of Lord Darzi’s report the Prime Minister has created a stir by claiming NHS England is in a “critical condition” and seems to have promised the biggest ‘reimagining’ of the NHS since its birth.

Somewhat embarrassingly for the First Minister he also said that the NHS in Wales “desperately” needs reform too. His comments came on the day that waiting lists hit a record high in Wales for the sixth month in a row. As I understand it the First Minister is keen to stress that tackling record high waiting lists is the priority. I wish them well.

Having said all this, we should not forget how blessed we are here in the UK despite the problems that confront our much-loved NHS. That becomes painfully obvious when we compare our experience with that of so many others in various parts of our sad, troubled world. When we do that we can see just how fortunate we are compared to them.

This is why I am grateful to the leaders of Pembroke Town Hall Messy Church for drawing my attention to the outstanding work of the charity known as ‘Mercy Ships’. Their two hospital ships sail to ports across sub-Saharan Africa, taking equipment, supplies and skilled surgeons to the places that have little or no healthcare. As one of the Messy Church leaders said to me recently ‘It is “an absolutely wonderful organisation, they are like the fairy godmothers to families in countries who would not normally be able to access such services”.

The statistics are staggering and inspirational. According to Mercy Ships someone dies from a surgically treatable disease every two seconds, or to put it another way 17 million people die needlessly due to a lack of access to safe affordable surgery. And to put things in perspective I’ve learned that there is only 1 doctor for every 100,000 people in Africa compared to 300 for every 100,000 in the UK.

That’s why Mercy Ships is such a laudable charity. It ships are crewed by volunteers from over 60 nations and volunteer professionals give of their time and skills treating many health conditions from blindness to bowed legs, cleft lips to facial tumours. Just as importantly Mercy Ships seeks to transform those situations by providing training and mentoring for local professionals, renovate hospitals and clinics, donate tools and equipment and partner with governments to change healthcare policy. Amazingly, Mercy Ships has trained more than 50,000 medical professionals over the years.

It would be easy to get lost in a sea of statistics of course which is why I was delighted to be told that at a recent Christian youth camp a visitor showed the young people there a pile of teddy bears. She challenged them to think of a name for each teddy and to write a message on the tag so that it could be presented to a child after they had received treatment on one of the ships.

I found that inspirational. It was a wonderful reminder that we can all do something to change things for the better even if it’s through a note of thanks and encouragement to those who are battling to improve our own health services as well as supporting the work of those who serve in the most demanding of situations.