A SHIP CALLED HOPE

HOPE (Health Opportunity for People Everywhere) is the new name of a disused Navy hospital ship with a threefold humanitarian mission--to teach, to heal and to be pilot ship for an envisioned great white fleet of hospital ships. The idea of HOPE was conceived by Dr. Walsh in 1958 and the first ship set sail in 1960, bound for the Far East, to dispense free aid and also show that Americans were not necessarily money monsters. The first leg of the HOPE's year-long journey was through indonesia. Conditions there were not merely appalling: Indonesia has 1500 doctors for 90,000,000 people strung throughout 3600 islands, and when one calls the doctor one may have to wait a year. Despite the imperative emphasis on re-educating local doctors and nurses to modern medical techniques, the staff's workload daily is literally beyond the reader's comprehension. One eye surgeon had so many cataracts to remove that he could do only one eye per patient, in the hope that a local doctor would eventually learn to remove the second cataract. During the later leg of the trip through Vietnam, their work was complicated by Communist demonstrators and anti-American activity. HOPE has since made later journeys to South America and plans next for Africa... A phenomenal story which should move the stoniest-hearted readers with its demonstrable human and inspirational interest.