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On April 23, 2024, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Navy, the three major fleets of the Navy carried out a variety of open day activities in more than 10 cities across the country. Among them, the Navy's East China Sea Fleet opened a Type 052D missile destroyer Zibo (board number 156) and the famous Type 920 hospital ship "Peace Ark" (board number 866). Among them, the "Peace Ark" hospital ship is particularly eye-catching, and the author was fortunate to board the ship to see its true face.
The ramp of the "Peace Ark" ship is very steep, and you have to hold on to the railing to get on and off the ship
The first impression of the "Peace Ark" hospital ship is that it is big, and it is very large, and walking in front of it is like a big mountain in front of you. According to the information, design work on the Type 920 hospital ship began in 2005. In 2006, the construction was started by Guangzhou Shipyard International. It was officially launched in August 2007. In October 2008, after passing the sea trial and acceptance of the hull and shipboard medical equipment, it was delivered to the troops, with the port number 866, and officially joined the combat sequence of the People's Navy and was named "Daishan Island". Through the communication with the crew, this visit also solved a mystery in my mind, that is, is the name of the 866 ship "Daishan Island" or the "Peace Ark" that everyone often hears? In fact, the ship was indeed officially named "Daishan Island" when it was listed, but because the ship performs foreign medical services all year round, the name "Peace Ark" is easier to understand. With the adjustment of the naming of naval ships and the rules of the gunwales in 2021, the name "Daishan Island" is no longer mentioned, and it is called "Peace Ark" both on the gangway and in external publicity.
The 866 ship is 178 meters long, 24 meters wide, 35.5 meters high, and has a full load displacement of 14,300 tons, which is much smaller than the 903A comprehensive supply ship "Hoh Xili Lake" that the author visited in Qingdao, but field observation found that the height of the hull is much higher than that of the supply ship. The height of the 866 ship is directly reflected in the slope of its gangway, which has reached about 45 degrees by visual inspection. According to the scene, the helicopter deck is 32 meters long and 24 meters wide, which can carry a Z-8JH ambulance helicopter, and the helicopter hangar is also open to the public this time. Standing on the flight deck, the intuitive experience is that it is spacious, which provides great convenience for the take-off and landing of ambulance helicopters in wartime.
An ambulance landing craft on the starboard side of the ship "Peace Ark".
After visiting the helideck and hangar, we came to the passage on the starboard side, where several different types of lifeboats were arranged in turn, so that people on board could be evacuated in time in case of accidents. To my surprise, there was a landing craft on each side of the aisle, and upon inquiry, I learned that this was an ambulance landing craft, which could be lowered to the surface of the sea with the help of a robotic arm and used to transport the wounded and sick. The deployment of the ambulance landing craft has greatly improved the efficiency of the 866 ship's rescue of the wounded and sick.
Walking through the passage on the first deck, we enter the interior of the cabin, which displays the various missions that the "Peace Ark" has carried out over the years, including specific tracks and countries and regions visited. According to the introduction, the "Peace Ark" hospital ship, as a large-scale maritime medical rescue platform, has carried out 9 "Harmony Mission" global medical service operations, 2 "Rim of the Pacific" exercises and 1 Philippine humanitarian medical rescue mission since its entry into the list, and has provided medical services for more than 290,000 people in 45 countries and regions, and was awarded the title of "Model of the Times" by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2019.
The missions carried out by the "Peace Ark" ship and the countries and regions it has visited
The reason why the 866 is able to undertake so many medical tasks is that it is fully functional. It is a purpose-built hospital ship, carrying medical facilities and equipment that reach the level of a tertiary hospital. During this visit, the 866 ship was quite open, and the cabins on the second floor were completely open, and you can take photos at will. There are two large personnel elevators in the cabin, which can go from the first floor to the fourth floor cabin, but this time the elevator is only open, but not open for use. Visitors need to go up the internal staircase to reach the cabin on the second floor, and when they go up, they can see that there are laboratory rooms equipped with a variety of testing instruments, a special examination room equipped with a color B-ultrasound diagnostic device, a portable B-ultrasound diagnostic device, and an electrocardiogram machine, and a disinfection supply room that can be used for batch disinfection operations. The disinfection supply room is divided into a decontamination area, a packaging area, a sterilization area and an article storage area, equipped with automatic cleaning machines, autoclaves and other equipment, and surgical equipment and other items are transferred to each other with the operating area through different lifts.
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In addition to the above-mentioned cabins, the 2nd deck of the 866 ship also has internal medicine, surgery, otolaryngology, traditional Chinese medicine clinic and other departments, especially worth mentioning that the traditional Chinese medicine clinic can carry out acupuncture, cupping, scraping and physiotherapy and other traditional Chinese medicine treatments, for the treatment of insomnia, cold, joint pain, constipation, training injuries and other unique curative effects. In the surgical office, I also saw the famous capsule gastroscopy for the first time. Developed in 2013 by Academician Li Zhaoshen of Changhai Hospital affiliated to the Naval Medical University, this new technology allows patients to swallow a capsule endoscope with water and complete a gastric examination in 15 to 30 minutes, which is also in line with the high mobility of the hospital ship. After the tour of the inner cabin, we went down the port side to the gangway in the middle of the hull and lined up to get off the ship, ending the tour of the 866 ship.
Capsule gastroscopy and detection system on display in the surgical clinic
The 866 ship is the first ship of the Type 920 hospital ship, and it also opened a precedent for large hospital ships of the Chinese Navy. As the People's Navy moves farther and farther into the deep blue, the demand for various types of hospital ships is also increasing. In recent years, the Navy has successively included two Type 919 medium-sized hospital ships, the 861 "Friendship" and the 862 "Friendship" ship, which are mainly used as mobile medical forces deployed in the waters of the Nansha Islands. The No. 2 ship of the Type 920 hospital ship, the 867 "Silk Road Ark", also quietly appeared last year, and in the future, it will take on the important task of the People's Navy's ocean-going security and logistics support together with the 866 ship.