On October 6, Mercy Ships announced the debut of its largest non-profit (NGO) hospital ship, Global Mercy, which is currently the largest and most advanced unofficial hospital ship in the world. Built by Tianjin Xingang Shipbuilding Heavy Industries, The ship is scheduled to sail to Africa in 2021.
Mercy Ships is a faith-based global organization run by charitable donors and volunteers that has been providing world-class surgical care to those in need for more than 40 years, free of charge.With more than 16 million people dying each year due to lack of access to surgical care, Mercy Ships is building Global Mercy as a way of dealing with the world's problems in the future.
"The Global Mercy corps' number would be a real modern miracle, this is a completely customized hospital ship, equipped with a custom instrument, the most advanced technology and modern hospital talents with higher training," Mercy Ships, President of Rosa Whitaker said, "for any given call to serve the people, it also represents a unique call to action, also provides the use of its positive impact on Global health care skills opportunity."
In addition to providing surgical equipment, "Global Mercy corps" will also be equipped with the most advanced training space, including the one who has a virtual and augmented reality simulation laboratory, the human body model and other training tools, postoperative nursing care as well as the simulation of space, this space will make trainer simulate local conditions and limitations, so that under the environment of limited resources, a professor at the best practices.
Global Mercy will be equipped with six operating rooms and will accommodate more than 600 volunteers from around the world, including surgeons, crew, chefs, teachers, electricians, receptionists and more.
As the key functional area of the ship, the hospital is mainly composed of laboratory, general clinic, ophthalmology clinic, dental clinic, CT scanning room, rehabilitation room, operating room, pharmacy, ICU ward, inpatient department, nursing station, training center, etc.
The ship will also be equipped with a 682-seat auditorium, classrooms, gym, swimming pool, cafe, shop and library -- all of which can be used by up to 950 crew members during port calls.
It is understood that the ship, built by Xingang Shipbuilding Heavy Industry, was launched in February 2018 and docked in July last year.
It has completed the weighing and tilting tests of the empty ship and is scheduled to carry out its first sea trial in mid-to-late October.The new ship, with full rotary electric propulsion, has 12 decks, a total length of 174.1 m, a width of 28.6 m, a design draft of 6.15 m, a headroom height of 41 m above the designed waterline, and a service speed of 12 knots. It is classed as Lloyd's Register (LR).This is the largest and most advanced unofficial hospital ship in the world. Designed and built according to the standards of luxury cruise ships, it can sail around the world and provide free charity medical treatment and professional training to the poorest areas of the world. It is a benchmark for similar products in the industry and has attracted wide attention from the international community.
