USNS Mercy (T-AH-19)

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Career

Laid down:	June 12, 1974 (As SS Worth MA-299)
Launched:	July 1, 1975
In Service:	November 8, 1986 (to US Navy)
Out of Service:
Fate:	Active in service as of 2006.
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	69,360 tons
Length:	894 feet
Beam:	105 feet, 7 inches
Propulsion:	two boilers, two GE turbines, one shaft, 24,500hp (18.3MW)
Speed:	17.5 knots
Range:
Complement:	12 civilian and 58 military during Reduced Operating Status 61 civilian and 1,214 military during Full Operating Status
Time to Activate:	5 days

USNS Mercy being refueled at sea, April 2005 during the ship's mission to aid the tsunami vicitims.

USNS Mercy anchored off Jolo, Philippines in June of 2006.

The third USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) is a Mercy-class hospital ship in the United States Navy. She was named for the virtue of compassion. In accordance to the Geneva Conventions, USNS Mercy and her crew do not carry any armament. Firing on the Mercy is considered a war crime.

Mercy was built as an oil tanker, SS Worth, by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, California, in 1976. Starting in July 1984, she was renamed and converted to a hospital ship by the same company. Launched on 20 July 1985, USNS Mercy was commissioned on 8 November 1986. She has a raised forecastle, a transom stem, a bulbous bow, an extended deckhouse with a forward bridge, and a helicopter-landing deck with a flight control facility.

Her primary mission is to provide rapid, flexible, and mobile acute medical and surgical services to support Marine Corps Air/Ground Task Forces deployed ashore, Army and Air Force units deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat. Secondarily, she provides mobile surgical hospital service for use by appropriate US Government agencies in disaster or humanitarian relief or limited humanitarian care incident to these missions or peacetime military operations.

On 27 February 1987, Mercy began training and humanitarian cruise to the Philippines and the South Pacific. The staff included U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and U.S. Air Force active duty and reserve personnel; United States Public Health Service; medical providers from the Armed Forces of the Philippines; and MSC civilian mariners. Over 62,000 outpatients and almost 1,000 inpatients were treated at seven Philippine and South Pacific ports. Mercy returned to Oakland, California, on 13 July 1987.

On 9 August 1990, Mercy was activated in support of Operation Desert Shield. Departing on 15 August, she arrived in the Persian Gulf on 15 September. For the next six months, Mercy provided support to the multinational allied forces. She admitted 690 patients and performed almost 300 surgeries. After treating the 21 American and two Italian repatriated prisoners of war, she departed for home on 16 March 1991, arriving in Oakland, California, on 23 April.

USNS Mercy, homeported in San Diego, California, is normally in reduced operating status. Her crew remains a part of the staff of Naval Medical Center, San Diego, until ordered to sea, at which time they have five days to fully activate the ship to an Echelon III Medical Treatment Facility.

USNS Mercy departed San Diego on January 5, 2005 en route to the tsunami-devastated regions of South East Asia, where she provided medical care to the victims of the disaster as part of Operation Unified Assistance.

[edit] General characteristics

Patient Capacity:
- Intensive care wards: 80 beds
- Recovery wards: 20 beds
- Intermediate care wards: 280 beds
- Light care wards: 120 beds
- Limited care wards: 500 beds
- Total Patient Capacity: 1000 beds
- Operating Rooms: 12
Departments and Facilities:
- Casualty reception
- Radiological services
- Main laboratory plus satellite lab
- Central sterile receiving
- Medical supply/pharmacy
- Physical therapy and burn care
- Dental services
- Optometry/lens lab
- Morgue
- Laundry
- Oxygen producing plants (two)