MV Africa Mercy - Facilities

Facilities

The eight-deck floating hospital ship measures nearly 152 meters, with a weight of 16,572 gross tons. Its lower decks are a modern hospital with six operating theatres, an Intensive Care Unit, an ophthalmic unit, two CT scanners, x-ray, laboratories, and a recovery ward with beds for 78 patients. In addition to the ship's lab capabilities, ship physicians can consult with pathologists in the U.S. via satellite communications.

On its upper decks, the ship has accommodations for 484 crew members including families, couples and individuals. The ship has 126 cabins, a day care center, a school for all ages up through the last year of high school, a library, a launderette, a small supermarket, a restaurant, a gymnasium, shops and a donated Starbucks cafe. A fleet of 28 vehicles travels with the ship, for use in Mercy Ships land-based operations.

The initial provisions that were loaded aboard the Africa Mercy included 3992 kg of breakfast cereal, 419 kg of coffee, and 26.8 tons of frozen meat and fish (which was an estimated four months' supply). Today, the supply chain for the Africa Mercy stretches halfway across the globe. To keep the Africa Mercy provisioned involves shipping to the floating hospital at least 24 40-foot (12m) containers per year, equipped with everything from medical devices and medical supplies to food and furniture. Containers are filled at Mercy Ships headquarters in Garden Valley, Texas, and shipped from the port of Houston, or they are filled and shipped from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Temperature-sensitive supplies like vaccines and media plates are often transported via air, in rolling ice chests that travel with Mercy Ships staffers who are en route to the Africa Mercy.