Africa Mercy returning to Durban
REMEMBER the Africa Mercy? That’s the hospital ship that spent about half a year in Durban in 2010/11 when the ship underwent a major refit at Southern African Shipyards.
The hospital ship, which is entirely run by volunteers who pay to stay on board providing crewing services to the vessel, or medical services for the hospital on board, has been operating in the northeast of Madagascar for several months, after a lengthy stay in west Africa.
It will return to Durban around the end of June or early July when it is booked into the Durban dry dock for about three weeks.
This time the Durban firm of Dormac Marine has secured the contact to provide for a maintenance survey and repair. After completing dry docking it will go alongside the Dormac Marine repair quay at Bayhead until all work is complete.
The Mercy Ships organisation, which is headquartered in Texas, signed a contract in late 2013 with a Chinese shipyard to build a new 36 600 gross ton hospital ship. When delivery is made in July 2017 it will become the world’s largest civilian hospital ship, and will double the capacity for the provision of medical aid, including full-scale operating theatre work. The new ship will be 174m and has been custom designed for the work that Mercy Ships performs.
The current Africa Mercy vessel replaced the well-known Anastasis, which was retired in 2007. Africa Mercy is a 152m, 16 572 gross ton vessel built in 1980 as the rail ferry Dronning Ingrid. Before entering service with Mercy Ships in 2007 it was converted into a hospital ship, with operating theatres, wards, living quarters for crew, medical and other staff.
That alone cost $62 million.
It has six operating theatres, an intensive care unit, an ophthalmic unit, two CT scanners, X-ray, laboratories, and a recovery ward with beds for 78 patients. Doctors on board are able to consult US specialists by using satellite communications.