01 Feb 2007
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Floating Medical Centres
Amazon Hope 1 at the top and Amazon Hope 2 (Ixworth) below
BAE Systems Submarines were asked by the Vine Trust a Scottish Charity if they would convert the Fleet Diving Tender IXWORTH into a floating medical centre.
She arrived in Barrow-in-Furness in the autumn of 2004 where she has been refurbished and converted into a floating medical centre which will provide much needed medical services for the people of the Peruvian Amazon.
The vessel is now equipped with an operating theatre, dentist and doctors surgery, dispensary, new accommodation and galley. Local Businesses, Schools, Community Organisations and Churches were asked to help out with this project. The target was to raise £100,000 to cover the cost of equipment and materials which would be used in this conversion and also unite the community.
The community fully embraced the project raising a staggering £157,000, which enabled additional items to be added to the original specification. BAE Systems also developed an educational programme for primary school children, who developed some astounding pieces of work ranging from a 6ft mosaic of the ship, a full size rickshaw and poetry, to theatrical presentations, posters and jigsaws.
The work was exhibited in Barrow and following on from rave reviews subsequently was exhibited at Portsmouth at the Festival of the Sea (where the vessel was re-dedicated by H.R.H Princess Anne) and Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival. Since leaving Barrow in May 2005, Amazon Hope 2 has been on a successful PR tour of the UK visiting over 30 ports and attracting over 25,500 visitors.
All volunteer medical teams have been secured for 2006 through this tour and they are presently taking bookings for 2007. In January the vessel returned to Barrow for a planned maintenance period. On the 24th April she will bid farewell to the UK setting off on her transatlantic voyage heading for New York. Here she will be berthed at Battery Island for five days before spending a further five days in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale and ultimately arriving in Iquitos in Peru on the 8th July.
