Hospital ships

[PGoodman13]

I know in the Q-created future, Captain Beverly Picard commands the USS Pasteur, identified in several places as an Olympus-class ship. What other classes of hospital ship have been mentioned in Trek?

[PGoodman13]

MY error: Olympic, not Olympus. I've also seen Nightingale class mentioned, and for some reason I could swear I've seen a game writeup for something called the Mercy class. Someone? Anyone? Bueller?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

From the context, I think Istanbul-class ships might be used as such as well. The half-scrapped Class-3 transport Mirandas might have that job during the DW, and Galaxy-class or Nebula-class ships, along with being fleet C&C vessels, would make adequate platforms for emergency rescue transports from destroyed ships, or being able to defend themselves while tractoring in escape pods.

[ZeroArmour]

The only Mercy class I know of is in the USN, and I've heard of a USS Nightingale, but didn't I read somewhere that the USS Pasteur is actually Hope class?

[JALU3]

I can see the Federation maintaining medical/hospital ships for reasons mentioned by previous posters, but I don't think they have the same legal protection as they do here on earth, as seen by the attack on the Pasteur, not that medical ships have always been respected here.

That being said, while working on the Athena's write up (sorry I haven't finished it yet, long work weeks recently), I have looked at modern military medicine references which to model the ships medical department. That being said most modern ships appaer to maintain lvl I-IIB care depending on the size of the vessel, with a hospital/medical ship being roughly equivelent to a CSH or lvl III care.
All that being said, it appears that most Explorers and some Cruisers appear to maintain adequate staffing and facilities to provide lvl III care aboard ship, which would mean that a dedicated 23rd century hospital/medical ships may be lvl IV or V care.

[Owen E Oulton]

I know it's not canon, but I decided early on that since the Federation class dreadnaught in its final form bore little resemblance to the Franz Joseph original, the test-bed Federations would have been refitted to something useful, so I stripped the third nacelle off to create the Bethune class Hospital ship. The dual shuttle bays make it a natural, and the heavy shields don't hurt, either.

[Dan Gurden]

Also non-canon... But there is an old Kirk-era comic out there where the Enterprise A works alongside an Oberth medical shi, although this is a civilian vessel and working in strict neutrality (the plot of course is that not all species see a Federation origin and crew starship as neutral, even if its not starfleet)...

It was one of my inspirations for the Federation Peace Corps back in ICON days...

[Storm]

The Federation Peace Corps? Sounds interesting. What had you in mind for it? What sort of organization should that have been? What was it's relation to Starfleet? What it's main purpose?

[redwood973]

Storm, in case you haven't found it: Dan Gurden's Federation Peace Corps.

The final word on the FPC is on page two of the post.

[Storm]

Oh, thank you very much for the link. Wasn't aware it could be found here on the forums. Great stuff! Will see if I can fit it into my next convention adventure...