TECH
Floating hospitals bring advanced care to coastal and island regions
Medical ships use modular tech to deliver treatment where facilities are scarce
Medical ships use modular tech to deliver treatment where facilities are scarce (insert image based on floating hospital vessel equipped with medical facilities and emergency docks)
As populations rise near coasts and islands, access to healthcare remains uneven. Floating hospitals are stepping in, outfitted with modular clinics, surgical theaters, and emergency units. Built on ships or barges, these platforms bring advanced medical services directly to underserved communities.
Here are real, innovative deployments reshaping mobile healthcare:
Riverbarge hospitals in Bangladesh: The NGO Friendship converted barges into hospitals like the Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital and the Emirates Friendship Hospital, serving river communities.
Local shipyard builds: Taratari, a Bangladeshi shipyard, supports Friendship by building hospital catamarans and barges for remote deployment.
Old ferry repurposed: In the 1970s, the non-profit Esperança converted the Point Loma ferry into a floating hospital in Brazil’s Amazon region, bringing surgery to underserved areas.
That’s not all: in Southeast Asia, Indonesia’s doctorSHARE initiative retrofit an old barge into a floating hospital to reach remote islanders in the archipelago.
Meanwhile, UK designers proposed modular container-based floating hospitals capable of rapid deployment during health emergencies.