Mercy Ships just built a new hospital ship. Every other hospital ship I heard of was a convert. This is a modified RO/RO design. Also if anyone is interested I know they are always looking for professional Mariners as volunteer crew. https://www.marineinsight.com/videos/watch-global-mercy-worlds-largest-ngo-hospital-ship-unveiled/amp/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20MarineInsight%20(Marine%20Insight)
1 Like
Yea I had thought about volunteering for them. But if they want me to volunteer my time and professional expertise on top of donating them money, I can’t afford that. Even MSF doesn’t make you pay your own way. I always find it odd they try to recruit at Academy career fairs.
1 Like
New hospital ship looks very similar to the design for the new training academy ships
1 Like
New training ships are set up to be able to be used as hospital ships.
If you really felt compelled to volunteer I heard of people obtaining sponsorship through their community back home. In my hometown I know a couple of doctor offices & small business owners who would love to associate their businesses with a person who volunteers to save lives. Might even get mentioned on the local news?
My wife & I talked about volunteering with Mercy Ship or SmileTrain in early retirement. But I wouldn’t want to be CE with Mercy. I have a coworker who volunteers with Doctors Without Borders & he told me once he was responsible for fixing a portable generator that went down. He said he was scratching his head trying to find the problem & a doc casually stuck his head in the room & told him that 2 people were going to die if the gen wasn’t running before their backup batteries went out. I’ve been pretty good at keeping the lights on over the years but I wouldn’t want the stress of knowing somewhere on board someone is performing surgery
Crew fees are only a few hundred dollars a month and would be a charity donation. Here’s a list of Mariner positions available: https://opportunities.mercyships.org/opportunities-listings/?fwp_sectors=mariner
That’s a good point. Instead I ended up volunteering with my Local Chapter of the American Red Cross. I loved the opportunities it gave me to support my local community during disasters, as well as the opportunity I had to deploy to a much larger scale disaster in a different region.
1 Like