The Peace Ark hospital ship of the PLA Navy sets sail from the Wusong Port in Shanghai on October 20, 2009. (mod.gov.cn/Tan Yina)　

　　The sail-setting ceremony of the “medical service activity of the Peace Ark hospital ship along the 10,000-li coastal line” was held at the Wusong Port in Shanghai on October 20. During the 32-day-long rounds-making mission, the “Peace Ark” maritime hospital ship of the Navy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with a tonnage of ten thousand will sail southward for 5,000-plus nautical miles and berth at 18 island-and-reef ports including the Ocean Island near Dalian in northeast China’s Liaoning Province and the Nan’ao Island in south China’s Guangdong Province.

　　The objects of the medical rounds-making mission include not only the officers and men of the PLA troops, public security frontier troops and armed police troops stationed on the islands along the Chinese coastline, but also the on-duty staff of the fishery administration on the Xisha Islands and the Nansha Islands, fishermen and habitants on the islands. As far as the treatment is concerned, priority shall be given to outpatient diagnosis and treatment of the common diseases on the islands and reefs, the frequently-occurred diseases and the refractory diseases. Besides conducting safe, reliable surgical operations with obvious curative effect, the medical workers can implement remote consultation diagnosis for refractory or special diseases with the help of the remote consultation diagnosis system installed on the hospital ship.

　　The “Peace Ark” hospital ship is a new generation of maritime emergency medical support platform independently designed and developed by China and its medical equipment is equivalent to that of the domestic first-rate hospitals.

　　By Chen Wanjun and Yin Xiaohui

　　Translated by China Military Online