This is the USNS Comfort.
She is a hospital ship with a thousand beds with a staff of 600. Comfort has just arrived in Haiti, part of operation Unified Response Haiti, to tend to the sick and suffering.
Comforts sister ship USNS Mercy performed a similar mission after the boxing day Tsunami.
I don't know about you but the concept of shifting a thousand bed hospital to remote parts of the world when they are in times of trial just fills me with awe.
Impressive hardware.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if NZ could buy a couple and park them in Auckland and Wellington to service the never ending waiting lists.
Must be a bloody sight cheaper than building new hospitals.
And cunningly avoid the new land tax. Must look into importing a river boat.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that that ship is probably better equipped than most New Zealand hospitals.
ReplyDeleteCertainly better equipped than any Haitian hospital - even before the earthquake.
ZT, Unfortunately most local government thieves have the regs sewn up that when you park your piece of floating land to avail yourself of their landbased 'services', you pay through the nose via extravagant 'fees'. The land tax would be just another burden added to those fees.
ReplyDeleteWith a far better staff/patient ratio, Andrei.
ReplyDeleteAnother good thing about a military hospital ship is that the staff actually want to be there. Zero unionised in sight anywhere, I'd suspect.
ReplyDeleteThat's America for you folks, kicked endlessly, but always ready to help, always with the means to help, which is more important.
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