Experts: Hospital ship is too big for Greenlandic ports

US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Sunday that he would send a hospital ship to Greenland to "take care of the many sick people who are not being taken care of".

– It's on its way!!!", read the post, which was accompanied by an AI-generated image of "USNS Mercy".

Too big for Greenland's ports

The USNS Mercy is one of the US hospital ships, and according to the US Navy has a length of 272 meters and a draft of 10 meters.

It is a large ship.

The only port in Greenland that can in principle have the USNS Mercy docked is the container port in Nuuk, as the quay measures 310 meters and has a draft of 10.5 meters.

But that would affect other activity in the port, because there is a lot of activity many days each week in connection with handling supplies for all of Greenland and exports out of the country.

None of the other ports in the country would be able to accommodate a ship of that size.

This is stated on the website of the Geodata Agency: gronlandskehavnelods.dk, where the depths and quay lengths of all the Greenlandic harbours are publicly displayed.

Here, for example, you can see that the Atlantic quay in Qaqortoq is only 110 metres long, and that the harbour depth is 6.5 metres. The same is the case in Ilulissat and Tasiilaq. In Qaanaaq, the quay is 135 metres long and the depth is 7 metres, while the Atlantic quay in Sisimiut is 180 metres long and has a draft of 7.8 metres.

Not suitable for sailing in the Arctic

Another challenge is that the American hospital ships, like many cruise ships, are not at all suitable for sailing in Arctic regions.

This is pointed out by a shipping and maritime expert for The Danish Society of Engineers, Hans Otto Holmegaard Kristensen to Sermitsiaq.

– The American hospital ship USNS Mercy is an old supertanker – a floating box that is not ice-reinforced, and is therefore not suitable for sailing in the Arctic with thousands of patients and staff.

According to the American defense, the ship has room for 1,000 patients and up to 1,300 crew members.

A ship for crisis situations

According to Hans Otto Holmegaard Kristensen, the ship is intended to be used in special crisis situations, such as after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, where many people were evacuated and treated aboard the American hospital ships.

Finally, there is the fact that the ship is not on its way to Greenland at all.

– Like everything else from Trump, the offer is completely ill-conceived. And it is also nonsense to claim that it is on its way to Greenland. It is in a shipyard in Alabama, says Hans Otto Holmegaard Kristensen.

Hospital ship will only create new problems

Professor emeritus of economics at the University of Southern Denmark and chairman of the Greenland Health Council Kjeld Møller Pedersen also believes that the more you reality check the idea of ​​an American hospital ship to Greenland, the more hopeless it looks.

– The hospital ship is not the solution to anything. It will only cause a collection of problems later. Now take the legal issue. If you, as a Greenlandic citizen, go on board to have an operation on an American hospital ship, you will effectively be without rights unless you have taken out insurance. And what if the operation proves to be more complicated than they can handle on the ship, where should the patient be evacuated to? In addition, there are a sea of ​​practical issues. How and who should transport patients to and from the ship? Who can interpret between English and Greenlandic? What do we do with rehabilitation? And what about patient records, which are an important tool for healthcare personnel in their daily lives?

The idea should be stillborn

According to Kjeld Møller Pedersen, the announcement from the president also shows great ignorance about Greenlandic society and healthcare.

Finally, one can also ask what we actually need with 1,000 beds on board a ship when we in the Greenlandic healthcare system only need less than 500 beds today. It's like shooting sparrows with cannons, says Kjeld Møller Pedersen, who believes that the American offer is only intended as a provocation.

– The idea should be stillborn. Any thinking person would say that this is not the best idea in the world - to put it mildly.

According to Kjeld Møller Pedersen, the real problem in the Greenlandic healthcare system is that there is a chronic shortage of staff and many short-term employees. And that problem cannot be solved by a visit from an American hospital ship.