The Hope Ship

Abstract

The HOPE ship was closing its tour near the small town of Trujillo, Peru, a bleak port on the Peruvian coast. In the past ten months the medical team had treated 45,OOO people, but now the time was up, and everyone was eager to go home. The entire day was spent dismantling the operating room, organizing supplies, and completing hospital records. The gratitude of the natives and the sincere but perpetual speech-making of the local and national dignitaries were appreciated, but everyone on board was tired. For the final farewell, the families of our patients decided to shoot off some fireworks. Either their timing was bad or the materials were faulty. At any rate, there was a terrible explosion. When the smoke cleared, a half dozen people needed surgery. With renewed strength and enthusiasm such as I have never seen elsewhere, the tired and homesick OR team rushed back to their station, reassembled the equipment, opened the supplies, and plunged into the task of operating on our six explosion victims. When the team finished, the ship sailed. This experience is typical of the willingness, competence and devotion to duty I found in the surgical nurses aboard the HOPE ship. And this applies to all the nurses on this assignment. To me, they are the greatest group of people in the world, and their esprit de corps is one outstanding factor that makes the HOPE project a gratifying experience to every doctor who enters this service. The name of the hospital ship, HOPE, stands for Health Opportunities for People Everywhere, and that is the goal of this people to people health foundation. This private, philanthropic organization is dedicated to medical education, and its principal institution is the ship. Originally called the U. S. Hospital Ship, Consolation, this vessel was commissioned and used in World War 11; it later served in the Korean War. When the crisis was over, it was decommissioned and placed in mothballs. In the latter part of the Eisenhower administration, William B. Walsh, M.D., of Washington, D. C., conceived the idea of equipping a teaching arsenal of medical instructors and equipment, and setting it afloat, with its primary goal to teach the finest of American medical skills to people in the medical and health fields in deprived nations of the world. When the ship was loaned to the project, it was recommissioned, “HOPE.” This 550 feet, 15,000 ton vessel is a fully equipped hospital ship, normally carrying 100 crewmen and 90 members of the hospital staff. It has beds to accommodate 110 to 115 patients. By invitation from the government of a country, the ship goes to a port and stays ten months. Educational activities are carried out aboard the vessel, as well as in institutions of that country. Instructing is done on all levels: physicians, dentists, nurses, and technicians, each to his counterpart of that nation.