A Chinese naval hospital ship is to call at Timor-Leste as part of a humanitarian mission in the Pacific.
Named Peace Ark, the vessel set sail last week from a port in Zhoushan, in east China’s Zhejiang Province, the Global Times reports.
Timor-Leste The hospital ship will remain in Timor-Leste for a week, providing medical services free of charge to local people and Chinese expatriates. Some 126 medical staffers are on board the vessel, which boasts 26 clinical departments and 7 auxiliary departments, the Global Times says.
[See more: In a major boost for Timor-Leste’s food security, rice harvests have more than doubled]
Medical personnel on the ship – the first ocean-going maritime hospital designed and built in China – can carry out general surgery as well as orthopaedic, obstetric and gynaecological treatments.
Since being commissioned, the vessel has visited 43 countries and regions, provided medical services for more than 250,000 patients and seen more than 1,500 operations conducted on board.
Peace Ark will visit Kiribati and the Solomon Islands as part of the same voyage.
