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Comfort Begins Humanitarian Operations in Peru

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS070808-17
Release Date: 8/8/2007 6:14:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elizabeth Allen and Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kelly E. Barnes, USNS Comfort Public Affairs

SALAVERRY, Peru (NNS) -- Personnel attached to U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) unloaded medical equipment and set up sites for primary care for local citizens at Miguel Grau School and Sanchez Carrion, Peru, Aug. 6.

The sites where aid is being offered were selected by the Peruvian officials. Medical operations officers from Comfort’s pre-deployment site survey (PDSS) team coordinated with the host country in determining which sites the Comfort personnel will work from.

“The host nation selects the area of the country to work in,” said Cmdr. Sandra Hearn, a medical operations officer attached to Comfort. “Most of our locations had to be relatively coastal. Then the host nation selects five or six sites within the area. The PDSS team would look at those sites, choosing two to three that would accommodate the size and functions of our team – a location with rooms for medical, dental, immunizations, teaching and optometry.”

Pharmaceutical, optometry, general medical care and dental equipment, and tools needed for construction work to be accomplished by Seabees attached to Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit (CBMU) 202 aboard Comfort were loaded onto pallets and staged on the flight deck several days before Comfort’s arrival.

“In transit from El Salvador, we worked on getting all of our supplies palletized and ready for transport to Peru,” Hearn said. “We also planned how to staff the sites.”

Before medical personnel could begin seeing patients at the sites ashore in Peru, medical equipment had to be staged at the sites. Palletized supplies were vertically replenished from the flight deck of Comfort by Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 28 MH-60S helicopters to a pier in Salaverry.

On the first day off the coast of Peru, the cargo and personnel for site set-up were transported from the port by bus to the medical sites. They worked to get things ready for the rest of the Comfort team, who will provide care for patients for approximately a week.

Set up included unloading cargo and supplies from the trucks, setting up check-in tables and patient holding areas, arranging pharmaceutical supplies, general organization of each department room, setting up dental chairs and equipment and organizing the optometry room for eye examinations.

Seabees were at the sites as well, pre-staging their tools and assessing what they will work on, and what supplies they will need to purchase to accomplish their missions.

Comfort is on a four-month humanitarian deployment to Latin America and the Caribbean providing medical care to patients in a dozen countries.