These speedy new Navy medical ships are designed with the Pacific in mind
Story by Hope Seck, Sandboxx • Yesterday 9:15 AM
Tucked inside the recently passed Defense Department budget for 2023 is funding for a new kind of Navy medical ship – one built to operate more like an ambulance than a hospital.
The ship’s builders and Navy officials say this reimagined vessel, the Expeditionary Medical Ship, is especially designed for easy movement and rapid response in the shallow littorals and vast expanses of a future operating theater like the Pacific. And the service is working to develop a complement of skilled medical personnel trained and ready to deploy onboard these ships to provide triage care almost anywhere in the world.
To be built by Austal USA, the Expeditionary Medical Ship will be based on the Expeditionary Fast Transport, or EPF, a catamaran used by the Navy for personnel transit within coastal operational theaters such as Central and South America. The first EMS, EPF-17, is supposed to be delivered to the Navy by December 2026, according to budget documents; the service so far has greenlighted funding for three of them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/these-speedy-new-navy-medical-ships-are-designed-with-the-pacific-in-mind/ar-AA16tY7L?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=fb0306b8439e4254b013aca2ba08e054
