Name: How the US' Hospital Ships Work
Uploaded: 2021-06-10T13:28:24.000Z
Duration: 10 min 47 s
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基礎受動態

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様態の副詞

The United States Navy is traditionally known for its military might.

It is, by far, the largest and potentially most capable Navy in the world thanks to its

innumerable aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines.

But, beyond those, and beyond all the cruisers and patrol boats and other combat ships, there

are two more that lurk in the shadows of the 490 ship fleet—the USNS Mercy and Comfort.

Hospital ships are more or less a forgotten relic of a time when wars were far deadlier

During those times, when fighting a war abroad, just like today, one had to consider where

casualties would go, but unlike today, there were no capabilities to quickly fly injured

One had to treat close to the conflict and for that, the most viable option was often

These ships were once so significant that, when nations came together to write the Geneva

Conventions, defining the rules of war, hospital ships were a significant focus.

They specifically denote these as any that specifically and solely work to assist the

wounded or sick, with the important distinction that they cannot carry any arms or ammunition.

These ships also must be painted white with red crosses to identify themselves, but assuming

these requirements are met, they are officially classed as a hospital ship.

Those with this classification cannot, under the Geneva Conventions, be attacked or fired

This was all plenty useful at the time the Geneva Conventions were signed, but today,

land-based warfare is increasingly obsolete, and it just doesn't make sense to float

a hospital to a conflict zone when field hospitals are more capable, and medical evacuation is

That's why only eight nations' navies still include hospital ships.

Most of these are rather small and primarily deployed for humanitarian purposes, but the

US' two hospital ships, meanwhile, are massive.

They're the size of cruise ships and comparable in capability to the largest land-based hospitals.

Each holds 1,000 hospital beds including 80 intensive care beds.

In comparison, the entire state of Maine has 1,061 total and 64 ICU beds.

To have an entire state's worth of medical facilities available anywhere in the world

is an immensely useful strategic power, but not entirely for the purpose of actually treating

Within the military, the Comfort and Mercy are officially classified as, “flexible

That's to say, they're an option for, “show of force.”

In wartime, sending a ship with capacity for a thousand patients sends a message that the

US is willing to accept an immense amount of casualties.

That may or may not be true, but the message is there.

In peacetime, parading a hospital ship around the world for humanitarian missions both fosters

good will for the US military, and also shows countries the capabilities of the US' military

The effectiveness of these ships as “flexible deterrent options” could be debatable, but

in the military's mind, this is the purpose behind these ships.

They're an option for deterrence or escalation.

That's part of the reason why they've seen so little deployment to combat zones.

Each ship has only seen one deployment primarily treating casualties of war—the Mercy to

Operation Desert Shield and Storm in 1990, and the Comfort to the Iraq War in 2002.

For the rest of their 30 year histories, they have spent their time deployed on humanitarian

missions to disasters or impoverished nations, or in reduced operating status at their home

While during active service the Mercy houses well over 1,000 crew, most of its time is

spent in port, in that reduced operating status.

At such times, the massive ships will house just 70 crew members who will keep it ready

By the nature of their service, expediency of deployment is key.

Therefore, they're designed so that they can go from reduced operating status to leaving

But while they can leave quickly, that doesn't mean they can necessarily get to their destination

The Mercy and Comfort are both converted oil tankers that originally launched in 1975 and

Oil tankers are not designed for speed, as it's just not necessary, so the ships can

only travel at about 20 miles or 31 kilometers per hour.

Compare that to a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier which, at almost twice the size, can travel

If there was, say, a disaster in Sri Lanka, it would take five days to get the ship into

full operating status, and then 20 to sail all the way to the Indian Ocean.

By that time, nearly a month after the disaster, the trauma phase of medical response would

This is likely a reason why a majority of the ships' deployments have been near the

Of those, many have been long-planned humanitarian missions to provide advanced healthcare to

These are, of course, incredibly impactful for those they serve, but overall, the ships

just aren't designed for super-fast response to critical crises.

The very size that slows it does, however, have a purpose.

Beyond just allowing for a massive capacity, the ships are stable enough that, even when

floating, it is possible to conduct most types of surgery in their 12 operating rooms.

There are exceptions—the floating platform doesn't allow for open-heart surgery—but

still, the possibility of conducting advanced medical interventions at sea is impressive.

There are, however, more issues related to the origins of the ships.

You see, hospitals are quite tricky facilities to design.

Small and subtle differences can mean the difference between life and death, and so

the accumulated experience of hundreds of years has resulted in explicit knowledge on

One of the myriad principles is that movement bottlenecks should be minimized.

That leads to features like wide hallways and doors, but it also means that, as much

as possible, the use of elevators should be avoided.

The technique to achieve that is, of course, to make hospitals wider.

You want as much as possible on the same floor so that there is as little need as possible

to put patients in elevators when transferring them from one area to the other.

If, for example, a patient takes a turn for the worse and needs to be rushed to an operating

room, the 90 seconds waiting for and riding the elevator can mean the difference between

This also has an implication on overall hospital efficiency.

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How the US' Hospital Ships Work

massive

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