Carnival Corp. has offered select ships from Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and P&O Cruises Australia to be used as floating hospitals in the coronavirus fight. Ships would be used for non-coronavirus patients.
The cruise ships are capable of being quickly provisioned to serve up to 1,000 hospital rooms, and can use remote patient monitoring devices over the ship’s high-speed network – providing cardiac, respiratory, oxygen saturation and video monitoring capabilities, and can provide up to seven intensive care units (ICUs) in the ship’s medical center equipped with central cardiac monitoring, ventilators and other key medical devices and capabilities.
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.