In Support of Hospital Ships:  A Need for Reform, not Rejection  

“In Support of Hospital Ships:  A Need for Reform, not Rejection “is a new paper for Security Nexus by Sebastian Kevany, Michael S. Baker, Deon Canyon, Al Shimkus, Wade Turvold, Mark Middleton, and Amy Russell.

According to the paper, “despite past successes, the hospital ship program has come under fire – metaphorically speaking – for being expensive, ineffective, and occasionally, critics say, even unhelpful or counterproductive. “ Despite critics calling for an end to hospital ships, the authors recommends reforms for the U.S. Navy’s hospital ship program.

They recommend that multiple, smaller, faster, and accessible hospital ships be developed for 21st Century strategic aims.  They call for the new hospital ship designs and paradigms to be developed and continuously forward deployed with, or in proximity to, the battlegroups they support in order to provide for both the primary and secondary missions.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the DKI APCSS or the United States Government.