Floating Hospital Gives Health Services to Surabaya Community

Kru kapal menyiapkan peralatan medis di ruang operasi berat dan ringan di kapal Rumah Sakit Terapung (RST) Ksatria Airlangga saat bersandar di Pelabuhan Sangkapura, Pulau Bawean, Gresik, Jawa Timur, Sabtu (28/10). Antara Jatim/M

Surabaya, East Java, March (Antara) - The Ksatria Airlangga floating hospital is now docking at Kalimas port in Surabaya, East Java, to give health services to local community.

The hospital ship has arrived in Surabaya after completing a humanitarian mission to provide free medical services for the people of Bawean and Kangean islands in East Java.

Spokesman of the floating hospital, Dr Henry Wibowo, remarked here on Tuesday that the hospital ship has so far provided medical services for 1,449 patients of Bawean island in Gresik district, and 1,050 patients of Kangean island in Sumenep district.

Wibowo said all the patients on the two islands were given free medical services.

"As an expression of her gratitude, a woman in Kangean island after undergoing a cesarean operation called her baby girl after Putri Ksatria Airlangga," he said.

Wibowo explained that the Ksatria Airlangga floating hospital was built by the alumni of Airlanga University's Faculty of Medicine in Surabaya for social purpose by giving free medical treatment.

The Ksatria Airlangga was built at Galesong traditional shipyard in Takalar, South Sulawesi, and was designed as a floating hospital to help the people in the outer islands that do not have hospital facilities.

"Airlangga University has 113 thousand alumni of the Faculty of Medicine who are scattered in various regions and are ready to support this humanitarian mission," he said.(*)