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Mission Complete, Pacific Partnership Evolves in 2009

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS090921-14
Release Date: 9/21/2009 4:07:00 PM

By Lt. Cmdr. Nancy Harrity, Pacific Partnership Public Affairs

PEARL HARBOR (NNS) -- Pacific Partnership 2009 (PP09) completed its five-country, three month humanitarian civic assistance mission when the team departed the Republic of the Marshall Islands aboard Military Sealift Command dry cargo/ammunition ship USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE 4) Sept. 18.

Pacific Partnership traveled for the first time to Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati and returned for a second visit to Solomon Islands and Republic of the Marshall Islands in Oceania, and stayed in each country for 10 to 14 days to deliver a variety of medical, dental, veterinary, preventative health, engineering and community relations programs.

This year's mission was considerably different than previous years' missions. This year the enabling platform changed from amphibious transport ship USS Dubuque (LPD 8) Richard E. Byrd less than a month before the mission was scheduled to depart. This change forced a significant reduction in the mission crew size from approximately 300 to 110, split between engineering and medical personnel and a 10-person staff element.

"One thing that's different about this Pacific Partnership is that we brought such a small number of medical professionals with us," said U.S. Navy Capt. Andrew Cully, Pacific Partnership 2009 mission commander.

"If you look at past Pacific Partnerships, they averaged about a 180-210 people. With this mission and since we're on the USNS Richard E. Byrd with limited berthing, I could only take 50 people with me," Cully said. "So if you look at the number of patients they saw, approximately 22,000 over the course of the mission, and you look at the PP07, where overall they saw 30,000 people the entire mission, you'll see that this year's patient to provider ratio is much higher."

The 2009 mission also was entirely expeditionary – all engineering and medical services were delivered ashore and included a number of smaller, one to two day medical outreaches ashore with 10 or fewer medical professionals hand-carrying what they needed to treat an island population of no more than a few hundred patients.

"These missions are by, with and through the host nations so they tell us where they want us to go," said Cully. "One place, for example in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, was Alinglaplap, with a population of approximately 1,000 people who are underserved in terms of medical support. We brought several doctors, a dentist and a pharmacist to help out and do a one day mission."

Another team went to an even smaller atoll, Jabwot. By the end of that day, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, all the children on both islands were immunized.

Pacific Partnership treated a total of 22,037 patients, the medical team saw 11,248 patients and the dentists saw 4,487. The biomedical repair team assessed 107 pieces of equipment, repairing 77 and performing preventive maintenance on 23.

The preventive medicine team tested water sources, suggested ways to improve public health through improved engineering solutions, and sprayed for mosquitoes.

Sustainability and increasing host nation capacity were two goals of every one of the PP09's 17 engineering projects. In the mission's largest project, a multinational team of engineers from Australia, Canada and the United States replaced a failed bridge in Kiribati and reconnected North and South Tarawa which enabled goods to move from the south to the north and residents from the north to reach the south for medical care. The bridge is expected to last at least 20 years.

All other engineering projects focused on improving schools and medical clinics. Most projects included some element of improving water catchment capacity by either replacing or installing water catchment tanks and guttering to fill them. At the end of the mission, the engineering team expended 1827.1 man-days on all of its projects designed to help the children of these countries stay in school and to enable medical clinics in remote locations to better serve their patients.

"Hopefully, what we build and leave behind will be enduring, because we have done it together. This is what we ought to be doing day-to-day to ensure peace and security in this important part of the world," said Adm. Robert F. Willard, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander who visited Pacific Partnership briefly in Kiribati. None of this could be accomplished without the multinational and multi-organizational team representing Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United States and the host nations themselves. Rounding out the team were professionals from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including International Aid, International Relief Teams, Interplast, Loloma Foundation, Project HOPE, Shriners, University of California San Diego Pre-Dental Society, World Vets and countless other NGOs based in the host nations.

In another significant change for 2009, the community relations element of the mission changed from being mostly manual labor and Project Handclasp donations to emphasizing person-to-person interactions, particularly with school children. A total of 9,050 man-hours were expended on 166 community relations projects over the course of the mission with projects ranging from school visits to assisting at medical, veterinary and engineering projects.

A new format for these interactions was piloted in Tonga and adapted for the rest of the mission where the team took the band, a group of team members, a Project Handclasp donation and, where possible, a helicopter to schools. The band played music to help break down language barriers. The children would either sing, dance or both, sharing their culture with the mission team. Then the helicopter would arrive (landing zone permitting) with toys from Project Handclasp. Students were allowed to tour the helicopters, a first for most of them.

"This combination proved quite popular with the schools, providing the children with the opportunity to see a helicopter up close and share music and dancing with us," said U.S. Navy Lt. Todd DeLaney, mission chaplain and community relations officer.

In addition to the school visits, the embarked members of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Band contributed to person-to-person interactions, with subject matter expert exchanges with police bands in Samoa, Tonga and Solomon Islands as well as by tuning pianos, violins and violas in Samoa and Republic of the Marshall Islands.

"Our Pacific Partnership mission has evolved over the years, with more partners and volunteers to work with the host nations," said Willard. Now when that first boat or helo arrives, they see it's an international face. And we are side by side with regional countries, non-governmental organizations and international agencies. There's great power in that."