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Navy Deploys Medical Teams to Haiti

Navy Newsstand

Story Number: NNS040401-12

Release Date: 4/1/2004 2:47:00 PM

By Ellen Maurer, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- More than 70 medical and support personnel from Camp Lejeune, N.C., deployed to Haiti March 29. They will set up a trauma unit for U.S. and allied forces serving in the region.

Sailors assigned to Charlie Surgical Company, 2nd Medical Battalion, will work alongside members from the 2nd Dental and 8th Engineers Support Battalions to provide on-site care to Marines recently sent to Haiti.

Lt. j.g. Saad Al-Aziz, commander of Charlie Surgical Company, leads the medical team, consisting of Navy doctors, nurses and corpsmen. Al-Aziz and many of the same Sailors who embarked with him to Haiti also deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He said this deployment is different from the group's last mission of treating the combat-wounded, though the purpose of sending military medical forces to the region is still a vital part of military operations and force health protection.

"Our mission is not only medically preparing our forces before they deploy around the world," said Al-Aziz, a former Navy chief who has been in the service for 18 years. "We also go with them so we can provide the same level of health care they would get at a stateside medical treatment facility. If they're going to go into harm's way, we're going to go with them and do everything we can to make sure they come back safe and healthy."

Al-Aziz spent the weeks leading up to the deployment ensuring his team had up-to-date immunizations and safeguards against regional infectious disease threats, like malaria.

Hospitalman Truman Green, a Sailor from Charlie Surgical Company, said getting ready for the mission was not a problem for him--he was already set, having just returned from the Horn of Africa Jan. 31.

"I would have liked to stay around a little longer and see my family," admitted Green, who has been in the Navy for less than two years. "But when duty calls, you just have to go."

The Lejeune team's deployment orders put them on the island for three to six months, with the Sailors returning some time after U.N. forces take over in the region in June.