Carnival Corporation is offering up cruise ships from its brands including P&O Cruises Australia to be used as temporary hospitals for non-coronavirus patients.
This would, in turn, free up space for regular hospitals to give those with the virus the care they need.
According to Carnival Corporation, its cruise ships can be quickly provisioned to serve as hospitals with up to 1,000 hospital rooms.
“These temporary cruise ship hospital rooms can be quickly converted to install and connect remote patient monitoring devices over the ship’s high-speed network – providing cardiac, respiratory, oxygen saturation and video monitoring capabilities”.
Carnival Corporation
“The rooms also have bathroom facilities, private balconies with access to sun and fresh air, as well as isolation capabilities, as needed.”
Similar to land-based health facilities, cruise ships can also house multiple medical functions in disparate locations by using different decks on the ship to separate each required medical area.
Carnival said the temporary hospital cruise ships would be berthed at a pier near the community in need and operated by the ship’s crew, with all maritime operations, food and beverage, and cleaning services provided by crew members on the ship.
Medical services would be provided by the government entity or hospital responsible for fighting the spread of COVID-19 within that community.
Carnival is actively encouraging governments and or health authorities with interest to email Monica Puello by email at MPuello@Carnival.com.
In return Carnival is looking for interested parties to cover only the essential costs of the ship’s operations while in port.