The Mercy class of hospital ship

Hospital ship

A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital; most are operated by the military forces of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones....

s are converted San Clemente-class supertankers

Oil tanker

An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...

 now used by the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 as naval ambulances. Originally built in the late 1970s by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, they were acquired by the Navy and converted into hospital ships, coming into service in 1986 and 1987.

The ships are operated by Military Sealift Command

Military Sealift Command

The Military Sealift Command is a United States Navy organization that controls most of the replenishment and military transport ships of the Navy. It first came into existence on 9 July 1949 when the Military Sea Transportation Service became solely responsible for the Department of Defense's...

 and are designed to provide emergency, on-site care for US combatant forces, and also for use in support of disaster relief and humanitarian operations. Each ship contain 12 fully equipped operating theaters, a 1,000-bed hospital facility, radiological services, medical laboratory, pharmacy, optometry lab, cat scan and two oxygen-producing plants.

Criticism

The Mercy-class ships are large, with 1,000 beds, and can receive up to 200 patients a day. They are stable platforms suitable for performing most surgical procedures in various sea conditions. However, the main points of criticism of these ships are:

• They are too slow, with a maximum speed of just over 17 knots. They are too large, and are not easily or quickly deployed or docked. Their size gives them a substantial radar signature that, combined with lack of maneuverability, makes them vulnerable to attack (which should not occur under the auspices of International Law
  International law
  Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
  
  ). The Mercy class ships are much larger (in terms of medical capacity) than is needed for most military operations. That said, to attack a hospital ship is a war crime
  War crime
  War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
  
   under Hague Convention of 1907.

• While the ships are underway or in rough seas patients must be transported by helicopter. However, helicopter capacities are limited, as each ship had only one landing pad.

• Patient movement within the ship is limited. Built as oil tankers, the original oil storage bulkheads were retained, but have no hatches, which means that patients must be brought up to the top deck in order to be moved from a lower compartment in one part of the ship to another.

In mid-2004 Vice Admiral Michael L. Cowan, the Surgeon General

Surgeon General of the United States Navy

The Surgeon General of the United States Navy is the senior-most medical corps officer in the United States Navy.- Establishment of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery :...

and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, said that the Comfort and Mercy should be retired. "They’re wonderful ships, but they’re dinosaurs. They were designed in the ’70s, built in the ’80s, and frankly, they’re obsolete".

Few, if any, options are presently being explored to replace them with a platform better suited to the mission at this time.