The Navy hospital ship Mercy, whose huge white hull is emblazoned with large red crosses, is on its way to Hawaii as it embarks on a 4 1⁄2-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission to Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia, officials said.
The 894-foot Military Sealift Command ship left San Diego on Thursday to begin Pacific Partnership 2012, which will conduct medical, dental, veterinary, engineering and civic assistance projects in the four countries.
The USNS Mercy participated in international relief efforts after the December 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia, and took part in humanitarian and civic assistance deployments to the Pacific in 2006, 2008 and 2010.
Medical school students at the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine are scheduled to visit the hospital ship May 11, officials said.
Pacific Partnership 2012 is led by three commanders: Navy Capt. James Morgan, mission commander for Pacific Partnership 2012; Navy Capt. Timothy Hinman, commander of the medical treatment facility, who is responsible for the hospital and providing medical care aboard Mercy and ashore; and Capt. Jonathan Olmsted, Mercy’s civil service master, who has overall responsibility for the ship and its nearly 1,000 passengers.
“Having participated in Pacific Partnership 2009, I know firsthand what an impact we have on the local populations we visit,” Olmsted said. “In building these relationships, we’ll have a better understanding of how multiple militaries and civilian organizations can work together to overcome the adversity of a natural disaster.”
The Japanese landing ship tank Oosumi, carrying a complete medical team, helicopters and representatives from Japanese volunteer organizations, will join Mercy during its stops in the Philippines and Vietnam.
The Mercy, a converted supertanker that stretches the length of three football fields, can accommodate up to 1,000 hospital beds.
The Mercy was delivered in 1986, and its sister ship, the Comfort, in 1987. The Mercy deployed to the Middle East for eight months in 1990 in support of the Gulf War.
The Pentagon now prefers to use mobile combat hospitals and to airlift evacuees from war zones in cargo planes that can be converted for medical care instead of dispatching slow-moving hospital ships.
