A Chinese PLA Navy hospital ship, Peace Ark, has sailed from Maputo and can be expected to arrive in Cape Town on Thursday 22 August for a goodwill visit to South Africa’s ‘Mother City’.
The hospital ship sailed on 16 June this year from a military port in Zhoushan, an archipelago in east China’s Zhejiang Province.
During her cruise the ship is visiting 15 countries in the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans with visits already completed to Seychelles, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique. Further calls will be made in South Africa, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Benin, Mauritania, France, Greece, Djibouti and Sri Lanka.
The South African call will be at Cape Town where Peace Ark is currently headed. The vessel will dock at the Victoria & Alfred basin, berth jetty 2, until 29 August.
According to the original announcement medical services will be provided at each port, with 600-700 patients able to be treated per day.
The ship has over 100 people on board the floating hospital, featuring 300 beds, 20 ICU beds, 8 operating theatres, 17 clinical departments and 5 auxiliary diagnostic departments, and even an onboard medical rescue helicopter.
The ship is also equipped with a remote networking and communications system to allow teleconferencing with doctors and specialists on land.
In a statement, the South African Military Health Service (SAMHS) said the fully fledged naval medical vessel will be operating alongside SAMHS medical staff and personnel in providing health service to the visiting local community of Cape Town and its outskirts. “South African National Defence Force high echelon and Provincial Department of Health officials will officiate at this event.”
The SA Navy and SA Air Force will provide logistical, technical and engineering support alongside the docked medical vessel.
The Type 920 hospital ship displaces 14 000 tons and has a length of 178 metres and width of 25 metres. She is the only ship of her class and is assigned to the PA Navy’s South Sea Fleet. Her pennant number is 866 and Chinese name is Daishan Dao but uses the name Peace Ark during peacetime.
Peace Ark was commissioned in 2008 and has since completed nine other ‘Mission Harmony’ cruises, this latest being the 10th. During her port visits the Peace Ark will provide free diagnosis and treatment for common and prevalent diseases to local residents, people in Chinese institutions, and overseas Chinese through onboard clinics and dispatched medical teams.
Peace Ark’s visit to African and other countries is also aimed at improving relationships and cooperation as part of China’s foreign policy.
Written by Africa Ports & Ships with input from defenceWeb. The original Africa Ports article can be found here.
