Craig Hooper from the Naval Postgraduate School and Lt. Jim Dolbow, USCGR, have a great article this week in National Defense Magazine. In the article, the authors lay out the case for adding both small and large hospital ships to the Coast Guard fleet.
The Coast Guard operates in a diplomatic space that the Navy is unable to replicate, and offers the United States another avenue to engage in politically sensitive disaster response and medical outreach projects.
Hospital ships are, by design, multi-use vehicles that are capable of serving in command and control, educational outreach, or as virtual sea bases.
Hooper and Dolbow propose a two-tiered fleet of US Coast Guard hospital ships. Larger ships would serve as command-and-control for a number of smaller ambulance-type craft. The authors offer a number of possible hull designs for the fleet including France’s Mistral amphibious assault ship (shown above), Japan’s Oosumi amphibious transport dock, and the United States’ Lewis and Clark dry cargo ship.
I agree with Hooper and Dolbow. Hospital ships would serve well in the Coast Guards current role. Furthermore, the use of Coast Guard ships in health diplomacy might deflect some of the anti-imperialist rhetoric produced by a grey hull parked off foreign soil.
Christopher Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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{ 3 comments }
CG only has a dozen or so physician assistants. The 50 or so medical officers, 50 or so dental officers, and dozen or so pharmacists are all detailed from the US Public Health Service. All the CG nurses are civilians. The USCGR has no medical, dental, pharmacy, or nurse officers. Even the CG Auxilliary has let die on the vine its limited medical officer program. The US Navy, with its huge medical, nurse, medical service, etc. corps has difficulty apring enough practitioners to field these missions. I don’t see how the CG could do it. You can’t inflate their (borrowed) medical, dental, nurse, medical service corps by 200% just to be able to surge them out every other summer. Besides, the creation of DHS has stretched the CG thin with LE missions, they are not in the market for an additional non-core mission.
Agree with TEJ. There is much more involved then just the vehicle to deliver aid. The logistics is huge. Why not consider PHS in combination with Naval Sealift Command or some pseudo entity. The Coast Guard has always taken pride in its Search and Rescue role, but commanding a Hospital Ship for humanitarian aid is going a whole other direction. I have no doubt that the Coast Guard would step up to provide assistance in the endevor, but to dump this “elephant” in thier lap is unreasonable, and unrealistic.
As someone who helped introduce the Hosptial Ships to MSC, I think I can say conclusively that the USCG is completely under manned and not set up to operate them. What the authors fail to appreciate is that the crew alone on these ships ranges from 25 in ROS to 125 CIVMARs in FOS. The Medical Treatment Facility aka hospital, ranges from 40 to 1200. The MSC provides all the ships’ crew while large MTF/hospitals and the naval reseves provide all the needed medical and support personnel. The USCG & PHS are simply NOT sized or structured for T-AH operations.
In addition, while there is serious discusion about building more or replacement ships, most who have actually managed them realize several smaller ships with additional functions/capabilities is what is needed. For instance, the Mercy had to add two utility boats since they were needed to transport crew, staff and patients to/from shore. The flght deck had to be improved to support helos for longer periods. There are no cargo holds to support the Seabees which are not seen as essential elements in a T-AH mission. I have a concept paper which addresses these problems, just email me.
P.S. its not just the white hull which is required by international treaty, it is also the removal/absence of military systems which a hosptial ship must conform to. Using warships as baseline models is not the right paath to follow. I serioulsly doubt a T-AKE naval auxiliary could be modified cost effectively to be a T-AH?
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