Mercy-class hospital ship
USNS Mercy
The Mercy- class consists of two hospital ships of the U.S. Navy, which were converted from oil tankers to floating hospitals. They are used to ensure comprehensive care of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers worldwide near the coast. The ships are, however, also used in humanitarian actions.
Equipment
The ships have a capacity of 1,000 hospital beds, of which 80 are in intensive care. Twelve fully equipped operating rooms, emergency rooms, state of the art radiology facilities including CT and MRI, pharmacy, mortuary, laboratory and treatment facilities, dental practices and opticians are available as well. In addition, they have two plants for the production of clinically pure oxygen. The ship is completely unarmed. The crew consists of 63 officers and 258 sailors. The medical staff on board during operations amounted to 956 A large helicopter platform allows the landing of helicopters of any type. However, it can also be injured supplied by boats.
History
During operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, they came off the coast of Saudi Arabia to their first use in an emergency. Several hundred soldiers were treated and 300 surgeries performed. In addition to numerous large-scale maneuvers the ships are also used regularly in humanitarian disasters, such as the Mercy after the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 or the Comfort in the Gulf of Mexico after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The Comfort came immediately after the devastating earthquake on 12 January 2010 deployed in Haiti.
Technology
The displacement is 70 473 tonnes ( 69 360 tn.l. ). The ship is 272.6 meters long, with a width of 32.3 m and a draft of 10 m. It is driven by two General Electric marine engines with a total of 24,500 hp on a wave. The top speed of the ships is 17.5 knots.