Gaye Waylee

Late one evening the phone rang in our room on the ship. It was the hospital lab asking if I might give my O+ blood at a moments notice. There was a patient on the ward with an unknown bleed in his abdominals. His haemoglobin levels were dropping dangerously low and new blood would bring his levels up again.

“Is it okay if we need to phone you in the middle of the night?” They asked.

Of course not.

It was early the next morning when the lab technician came looking for me. Swiftly but calmly she told me, “we need to take your blood immediately ”.


Mercy Ships has a wonderful blood donor system where crew are tested and used as blood donors as the need arises. Unlike western hospitals that separate the different parts of blood this is whole blood ready to be used. The blood is so fresh it is still warm it maintains its clotting factors, which disappears when blood is refrigerated.

A nurse approached me later that day to tell me the patient, Gaye Waylee, had received my blood and was doing much better.

“Gaye wants to meet you.” she then told me.

I agreed and was led down the long hall towards his ward. The doors opened and there was a hive of activity. The nurse pointed to a young man sitting on a bed.



“Gaye, this is the person who gave you blood”.

His eyes lit up as he turned to me and shouted across all the activity, “you are my sister! I have your blood in me.”


He introduced me to his aunt who was visiting and I was welcomed into the family.

Gaye is a mature, chatty 21 year old with a welcoming personality who had succeeded in charming the entire hospital staff. He was bright, well spoken, and perhaps a bit bored by being confined to a hospital ward in a ship. I visited Gaye on several visits down to the ward and learned his story. (Click on the two images at the end to read Gaye's story).




His month long stay on the ship began with skin grafts taken from his upper leg and placed over the open wound on his foot. Gaye will return in June for surgery to reset the bones in his upper leg. In the meantime, he is staying with relatives in Monrovia and coming to the ship twice weekly to have his foot dressings changed. He insists on seeing me each time.



His upbeat personality and determination will help him finish his last two semesters of grade 12. When I asked him what he wanted to do afterwards he confided in me that he was determined to go to university to study accounting.