Despite continued hopes for a future international peace conference in the Middle East, suicide bombers and Merkava tanks remain constant features on the front pages of U.S. newspapers. While peace efforts are frustrated for a variety of reasons, there may be a way to use U.S. Navy assets to help institute a lasting cease-fire and move Palestinians and Israelis toward peaceful coexistence.
The hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) sits idly at a pier in Baltimore; her sister, the Mercy (T-AH-19), sits similarly at San Diego. Converted oil tankers, these ships are marvels of military medicine; each is a floating medical center with 1,000 hospital beds, 12 fully equipped operating rooms, radiological services with a CAT scanner, and ancillary services such as a dental clinic, optometry offices, a medical laboratory, and a pharmacy. They have tremendous flexibility, from serving as casualty-care facilities during wartime to providing hotel services to exhausted New York rescue workers after 11 September.
Because of their unique capacities, sending the Comfort or Mercy to the eastern Mediterranean Sea for a six-month period would have many benefits. With the continuing terrorist attacks and the inevitable military responses, there is a need for an additional high-tech trauma hospital in the region. These ships are uniquely qualified to fill this mission. One could be kept at a relatively safe distance, allowing the United States to lend direct support to the victims of violence with minimal risk to people and equipment. Patients could be transferred from local hospitals via helicopter to the ship's flight decks for triage and treatment. U.S. government officials could arrange the details of casualty transportation to the ship.
This mission would be most successful if Palestinian and Israeli patients were treated as equals on board. While security would be paramount, having Israeli and Palestinian patients side by side in the ship's critical care units would make a powerful statement.
The personnel requirements of these hospital ships are enormous. Instead of drawing all their personnel from military health installations, they could deploy with military department heads and qualified civilian medical volunteers from the United States and other neutral countries willing to leave their homes and families to work for peace.
The need for everyday medical care in northeastern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean is tremendous. In addition to trauma surgeons, a team of pediatric surgeons could be deployed to focus on children. The results would be dramatic. It would send the message that Western technology can change the life of a child, and the world would see a different kind of Western coalition working for a greater good.
Besides drawing additional media coverage of the plight of the victims of this conflict, the Comfort and Mercy, with their flight decks and conference spaces, could act as floating Camp Davids, giving diplomats a relatively neutral site to conduct peace talks. The six-month deployment would set a time limit on negotiations, though the deployment could be extended as negotiations progressed. If the impact is great, either ship could be placed on station in the eastern Mediterranean as a permanent statement of the United States' commitment to peace.
A hospital ship's deployment in such a capacity would be a new approach to the use of naval assets in a time of international conflict. Such a use represents the very best qualities of our society—using technology to better man's condition and having compassion for the weakest among us.
Captain-select Wright is a staff dentist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Counter the Violence with Comfort and Mercy
By Commander Douglas D. Wright, Dental Corps, USNR