Fact file: The floating hospital

Fact file: The floating hospital

Originally built as an oil tanker, the USNS Comfort was converted into a vast hospital ship by the US Navy in 1987.

With 12 operating theatres she can handle up to 1,000 casualties at a time and is equipped to cope with soldiers injured in chemical or biological attacks.

Casualties are brought aboard by helicopter or boat, and are rapidly processed downwards through operating theatres and intensive care units into recovery wards in the lower decks.

The ship is fitted with state-of-the-art equipment

During the 1991 Gulf War, the Comfort travelled more than 35,000 miles and consumed almost three million gallons of fuel.

More than 8,000 outpatients were treated, 700 inpatients were admitted, and 337 surgical procedures were performed.

The Comfort has a crew of 63 civilian sailors and 956 medical personnel. She can also carry up to 258 Navy support staff.

The ship was deployed on two humanitarian missions to assist Haitian migrants in the Caribbean in 1994.

She sailed to New York in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 to act as a support base for rescue workers.