Explained: What is China’s Peace Ark Hospital ship?

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Credits: Reuters/Carlos Barria

Recently, a reply letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Bangladeshi child Alifa Chin, whose mother suffered severe heart problems in labor and was saved by military doctors sent by the visiting “Peace Ark” in 2010, drew attention to the Chinese hospital ship.

The Peace Ark, commissioned into the Chinese Navy in 2008, is among the helpful ships. What is the Peace Ark? How special it is? What has it done? Chinese Military takes a close look at the ship.

A ship for rescue

The Peace Ark hospital ship, known as Heping Fangzhou in Chinese, is the country’s first standard ocean-going hospital ship and the world’s first 10,000-ton-level professional hospital ship.

Weighing 14,300 tonnes and independently designed by China, it is identified in the People’s Liberation Army Navy as Daishan Dao, equipped with cutting-edge medical technologies.

Painted white with red crosses to mark it as a hospital ship, the Peace Ark is one of a handful of vessels in the world that are not converted from other types of ships and was specifically designed for medical purposes from scratch, unlike others which are remodeled from oil tankers.

The ship’s hospital equipment is on par with some top medical facilities in China. The crew includes some of China’s leading medical experts and professionals in neurology, gastroenterology, physiotherapy, traditional Chinese medicine, infectious diseases, reconstructive surgery and burns.

It has over 100 medical staff working in dozens of clinical and auxiliary departments, harbors multiple operating rooms, nursing stations and exam rooms, thus being capable of accommodating roughly 1,000 patients at once and diagnosing and treating various illnesses.

Upholding the principle of building “a community with a shared future for humanity” and “a maritime community with a shared future,” the hospital ship aims at bringing much-needed medical care to people from around the world free of charge.

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Source: China Military