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USPHS Supports Haiti HA/DR, Continuing Promise 2008

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080927-13
Release Date: 9/27/2008 2:15:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Brandon Shelander, Continuing Promise 2008 Public Affairs

USS KEARSARGE (NNS) -- The U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) is part of the diverse crew embarked aboard USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) helping support humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) efforts in Haiti since Sept. 8.

Aboard since Kearsarge deployed on August 6 for the humanitarian/civic assistance (HCA) mission Continuing Promise (CP) 2008, the USPHS, is a uniformed health service of approximately 6,000 personnel under the direction of the U.S. Surgeon General. USPHS was founded in 1798 and fills essential public health leadership and service roles within the nation's federal government agencies and programs.

While operating in Haiti, a USPHS officer is part of every medical civic action project (MEDCAP) and assessment team sent out by Kearsarge. Their mission is to document and report the health conditions within various villages and regions and report its findings to the Haitian government and various non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

This information is critical in documenting what the towns, villages or regions need most in terms of medical care and sanitation needs.

"Whenever we have a crisis like this, the response can be confusing," said Lt. Cmdr. Gary Brunette, a preventative medicine physician from Atlanta's Center for Disease Control. "In Haiti, with all the NGOs scrambling to help, the picture on the ground can be unclear. We've been able to get into areas where no people have been able to get to and do assessments."

Upon arriving in the small villages, the USPHS officer on each medical assessment team makes contact with local leaders or doctors, building trust and establishing relationships to find out what the needs of the people are and assessing sanitation practices, access to shelter, food sources and health concerns regarding the increase of certain disease or medical conditions.

"Our tools are a pencil, paper and a GPS finder," said Cmdr. Dale Bates, an environmental and public health officer from Seattle Health Resources and Services Administration. "The GPS coordinates are one of the most important pieces of data we collect. It lets the other organizations know exactly where to go for landing zones and sites of interest."

The USPHS has embarked with the Navy on numerous HCA and HADR missions including two with the Navy hospital ships, USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy, one with the USS Peleliu (LHA 5) and one with USS Boxer (LHD 4).

"They bring a unique skill set to our mission, and I've been very happy to have them aboard," said Cmdr. Dave Damstra, medical contingent commander aboard Kearsarge, about the USPHS crew. "They're great team players."

According to Capt. Jose Belardo, officer in charge of the USPHS team aboard Kearsarge, USPHS has played a vital role in developing the methodology used behind recent disaster relief and humanitarian efforts by the United States military.

"During disaster relief efforts in Indonesia after the tsunami, the USPHS used small teams. These teams went into the community to build trust and relationships by providing accurate public health assessments, engineering assessments, and medical care," explained Belardo. "Since then, other disaster relief assessments and MEDCAPs have used the model the USPHS first coined."

Prior to the HA/DR mission in Haiti, USPHS doctors and medical service providers spent the last month working alongside international and joint-military personnel, NGOs and partner-nation medical professionals in both Nicaragua and Colombia, providing basic medical care, education and service to the nations' population as part of the HCA mission CP 2008.

Once relief efforts in Haiti end, the USPHS team will resume its role in the Caribbean Phase of Continuing Promise 2008, offering similar HCA services to the people of the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.

There are currently 13 USPHS officers aboard Kearsarge, and a new team rotates in every month.

For more news from USS Kearsarge about Continuing Promise, visit www.navy.mil/local/lhd3.