Originally an oil tanker, the hospital ship, Hope, is the third ship to bear the name Hope. She docks in Baltimore and can be readied for service in 5 days. USNS Hope now heads out to Haiti to bring much needed medical help to the earthquake victims.
USNS Hope is owned by the Navy and is considered a state of the art floating hospital, with operating rooms, state of the art diagnostics, and now a staff that is dedicated and impressive. It can treat a thousand people at a time.
With docks in shambles, the game plan for getting those in need aboard the Hope is unclear. Americans should be proud of this floating hospital. Wikipedia boasts:
Operated by the Military Sealift Command, Comfort provides rapid, flexible, and mobile medical and surgical services to support Marine Corps Air/Ground Task Forces deployed ashore, Army and Air Force units deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat. Secondarily, she provides mobile surgical hospital service for use by appropriate US Government agencies in disaster or humanitarian relief or limited humanitarian care incident to these missions or peacetime military operations.
There are other hospital ships currently in operation.
Pretty cool use of America’s power.
Just a point of detail, Moon-howler. That ship is the USNS Comfort out of Baltimore. It is one of the Navy’s two remaining top-of-the-line hospital ships, always on stand-by for war and other emergencies. I remember the USNS Sanctuary and the USNS Repose cruising off the coast of I Corps in South Vietnam. No telling how many more of our people might have died without those magnificent ships and their dedicated personnel. I can recall being at Cua Viet and watching the steady flow of choppers headed out to sea carrying the wounded from Khe San and other battlefields. The worst part was being tapped into the radio comms between Khe San and the hospital ship and hearing Marines being told that their buddies didn’t make it. Enough to tear your heart out.
I am old enough to remember the great white vessels named “Hope” which carried doctors and medical/teaching assistance to the far corners of the globe. I understand that Project Hope still has a number of ships designed to respond to emergencies like the one in Haiti. They are probably enroute already.
I would guess some, including many of those poor Haitians, are wondering why all the relief hasn’t arrived yet. Apart from the fact that the Port-au-Prince airport is small and is lacking both unloading capacity and fuel for the turn-around of relief planes, those rescue ships can only cut through the seas as fast as their engines can carry them. Fortunately, most of the ships enroute are carrying choppers of all kinds, particularly because the docking facilities in Haiti has been almost totally destroyed. I tell you, this country, whether Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, or any other military component has one Hell of a group of chopppers and chopper pilots. They will make a huge difference.
Wolverine, your input during this crisis has been invaluable.
OOOOPpppps. I got the wrong ship picture? Sorry.