Floating Hospital

Dressed in mothballs, the 11,141-ton Navy hospital ship Consolation now rides quietly at a San Francisco pier. But next fall she is scheduled to cast off and establish an imaginative medical precedent: a tour of Southeast Asia as a floating U.S. hospital and medical school.

The project, announced last week, is the joint venture of the U.S. Government, big business and private philanthropy. The Navy will donate the Consolation,* American President Lines will operate her at cost, and the People-to-People Health Foundation will raise the cash (estimated annual bill: $3,500,000), sign on a permanent staff (some 15 doctors, 20 nurses), and a rotating staff of 35 doctors taken largely from U.S. medical schools. Called HOPE ("health opportunity for people everywhere"), the project is already swamped with applications from doctors bidding for the slots that range from dermatology to psychiatry.

During her maiden voyage of a year, the 800-bed Consolation will make ports of call where invited, give native doctors a chance to learn the latest American techniques, train medical aides in such fundamentals as vaccinations and blood tests, take patients aboard for treatment, including surgery. In turn, American crew members will get a firsthand look at some of the world's ills.

Heading HOPE is an energetic, 38-year-old Washington, D.C. internist named William Walsh. One of the outgrowths of President Eisenhower's people-to-people program of 1956 to boost international ties, HOPE has already received "substantial" amounts (biggest donors: the drug companies), and Walsh is convinced that Consolation will sail on schedule, accomplish Ike's original idea. "This is going to have a tremendous impact," says Walsh. "We can do it in other parts of the world--there are four more hospital ships in mothballs. It's a cheap way of waging peace."

* Functional sister to other compassionately named vessels--Tranquility, Repose, Sanctuary, etc.

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