This is the USNS Comfort next to a Chester Nimitz - social class supercarrier , the braggart war ship in the world . Together with its Gemini , the USNS Mercy , they are the largest hospital ship on the oceans , the secondly largest infirmary in the US and the 5th largest on the planet .
Their labor is admirable , help ten-spot of thousands all over the world every twelvemonth .
Both ship are vast , 894 - foot ( 272 - meter ) leviathans with a flying deck displacing 69,360 tons . They have a combined 2,000 bottom , 24 fully equipped operating suite , radiological service , medical labs , intensive concern units , dental service , physical therapy and burn care , pharmacies , optometry labs , CAT glance over and four O manufactory . The Mercy also has a powerful Lumenis optical maser to treat patients .
The Mercy was in the beginning the SS Worth supertanker , build up in 1976 . The Comfort was the exact same character of ship , a San Clemente Class petroleum tank ship built in that same yr . The 3 - football field long ships were reconverted by the US Navy to process injure soldier everywhere .
But they do much more than that . Together with volunteers from non - governamental medical organizations , they also avail tens of thousands of civilians strike by natural cataclysm . The US Navy ’s float hospital played a very important role in the aftermath of the Haiti quake , the Southeast Asia tsunami or Hurricane Katrina , to name just a few .
None of them carry offensive weapons — only justificative . force out against both ships would be a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions . The crews on both ships are civilian , and they let in 100 of volunteer medical personnel department , like the hundred Tennessean from Project HOPE that , along with others from different NGOs , just give from the Mercy ’s 2012 Pacific Partnership ocean trip to Southeast Asia .
Project HOPE volunteer Dr. Dana Braner waiting on the Mercy’s landing deck.
Dr. Braner carrying one of his many patients.
Project HOPE volunteers treating a patient.
One of the Project HOPE volunteers, Claude Hillel, assisting a Haitian patient on board the USNS Comfort.
The Mercy at one of its destinations.
The Mercy arriving to port.
hope
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and culture intelligence in your inbox daily .
News from the futurity , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
