Kali­fa Clyne

T&T cit­i­zens, for a lim­it­ed time, can ac­cess free med­ical ser­vices, such as check-ups and eye ex­ams, from a Chi­nese hos­pi­tal ves­sel which docked yes­ter­day in Port-of-Spain. The ves­sel docked at 10.15 am and was met by a del­e­ga­tion from the Chi­nese Em­bassy as well as mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force who were in­vit­ed on board for a tour. Ac­cord­ing to Lt Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste, of the T&T Coast Guard, cit­i­zens who wish to avail them­selves of the ship's ser­vices will need to go to the St James Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty be­fore be­ing al­lowed ac­cess to the ship. The ves­sel will stay in T&T un­til No­vem­ber 15 and doc­tors and of­fi­cials on board will vis­it schools on both is­lands and con­duct lec­tures dur­ing the vis­it. The hos­pi­tal ship, called the Peace Ark, op­er­ates as a mod­ern float­ing hos­pi­tal and car­ries on board ad­vanced med­ical equip­ment, so­phis­ti­cat­ed med­ical care sys­tems and life-sav­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

The ship hous­es two op­er­at­ing the­atres, an in­ten­sive care unit and sev­er­al oth­er med­ical de­part­ments. Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed on the ves­sel, the ship's mis­sions in­clude wartime evac­u­a­tion and treat­ment, mar­itime emer­gency treat­ment, giv­ing med­ical ser­vice to troops de­ployed to is­lands and islets, do­ing med­ical re­search and ex­per­i­ments as well as hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief. The on­board fa­cil­i­ty hous­es a CT room, X-ray and ul­tra-sound ex­am­i­na­tion room, phar­ma­cy, blood bank, oxy­gen gen­er­a­tor, hun­dreds of beds and be­tween ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 doc­tors. The ship al­ready has docked in Cu­ba and Ja­maica and will be stop­ping once more in Cos­ta Ri­ca be­fore re­turn­ing to Chi­na.