{"id":311190,"date":"2014-08-18T10:46:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T15:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=311190"},"modified":"2014-08-19T10:58:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T15:58:24","slug":"ebola-epidemic-delays-mercy-ships-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=311190","title":{"rendered":"Ebola Epidemic Delays Mercy Ships Departure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2014\/08\/thumb_mercyships2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2014\/08\/thumb_mercyships2-150x114.jpg\" alt=\"thumb_mercyships2\" width=\"150\" height=\"114\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-311193\" \/><\/a>GARDEN VALLEY &#8212; Collateral hardship from the Ebola epidemic now includes a delay for Smith County-based Mercy Ships, which operates the world\u2019s largest civilian hospital ship in ports on the West Coast of Africa. Already with one canceled deployment to Guinea, where Ebola first broke out last December, the Mercy Ship now waits in the water with crew and staff, pending an end-of-August decision on field service in Benin.  The Mercy Ship was due to sail for the port of Cotonou, Benin, for its 10-month field service last week but has delayed that sail pending further assessment due to the virulence of the outbreak in neighboring Nigeria. Earlier, in April, Mercy Ships made what officials term the difficult decision to cancel the hospital ship\u2019s planned deployment to Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak began last December. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Currently docked in the Canary Islands, following the vessel\u2019s annual maintenance phase, the 16,500-ton Mercy Ship is designed to deploy specialized surgical expertise and educational support. It is unequipped to treat viral epidemics, according to the charity\u2019s president and founder Don Stephens.  \u201cMulti-bed wards and limited isolation facilities, close proximity to crew accommodation and dining for families and children are but a few restraints,\u201d Stephens said. \u201cWe also hire 200 day crew in each port as part of our training and capacity building for Africa.\u201d  Stephens said the organization is closely monitoring the situation on the whole of the African continent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GARDEN VALLEY &#8212; Collateral hardship from the Ebola epidemic now includes a delay for Smith County-based Mercy Ships, which operates the world\u2019s largest civilian hospital ship in ports on the West Coast of Africa. Already with one canceled deployment to Guinea, where Ebola first broke out last December, the Mercy Ship now waits in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=311190\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ebola Epidemic Delays Mercy Ships Departure<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 23:27:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311190"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311196,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311190\/revisions\/311196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}