Navy Hospitalship Leaves Norfolk for Goodwill Mission
Navy News Service
Story Number: NNS110409-01
4/9/2011
By Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Nikki Smith
NORFOLK (NNS) -- USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) departed Norfolk, Va., April 8, ready to begin its humanitarian mission of mobile, flexible and rapidly responsive afloat medical capabilities in support of Continuing Promise 2011.
Continuing Promise is an annual mission that fosters goodwill and demonstrates the United States' commitment and support to Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Continuing Promise offers training for U.S. military personnel and partner nation forces, while providing valuable services to communities in need.
This is the sixth Continuing Promise mission; the missions so far have assisted more than 300,000 people. This will be the third time the Comfort has participated since they began.
The crew of Sailors, Marines, Airmen and civilians will take the floating medical treatment facility's services to the nine partner nations in the region. Services include medical, dental, veterinary, engineering and civil action programs. The medical and dental element includes 480 Navy personnel who will work with more than 30 nongovernment organizations among the nine countries to treat patients both ashore and onboard the ship.
The ship has a total capacity of 1,000 patient beds, including wards designated for limited, light, intermediate and intensive care, as well as recovery wards. Surgical services are available through 12 operating rooms.
Preparing the ship for such a deployment is a challenge, since Comfort is staffed by civilians and only sees full staffing when deployed. The preparations are different and, according to Sailors onboard, more difficult than preparing other ships for more traditional deployments.
Spaces have to be set up, operating rooms and clinics need to be equipped, and the pharmacy has to bring all the medicines onboard and ration them out for each country. The ship keeps some supplies onboard at all times, but it is stocked specifically for each deployment just prior. That means a lot of work and spaces that need to be readied for care.
Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) staff makes up nearly half of the embarked crew. To help get the ship prepared, 55 NMCP deployers arrived on the Comfort in mid-March. The ship then departed its Baltimore home port March 17 for a stop in Norfolk to pick up the rest of the crew from NMCP — an additional 150 staff members — and staff from other military treatment facilities throughout the country.
Since Comfort primarily relies on medical staff to accomplish its mission, hospital corpsmen are a large part of that. The corpsmen's duties range from taking vital signs to drawing blood and from dispensing medication to taking X-rays.
X-ray Technician Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Melecia Reid volunteered for the deployment since she was born in Jamaica. During the ship's planned visit there, she hopes to see her dad.
"I want my father to see what I do and how proud I am to do it," Reid said. "I want him to be proud."
Reid explained that because the Comfort is a floating hospital, its mission is different.
It provides medical and dental care that's needed in the countries the ship visits. Often that care seems "basic" compared with what Americans are used to. Comfort does not offer all the specialty services found in a large medical center like Portsmouth, and that can be challenging for the crew. In many cases, they are introduced to equipment they have never used.
"We definitely need to think outside the box," Reid said. "It's going to be a little difficult to be away from what we are used to, but it allows us to do our job in different ways and really hone our skills. I know that this working environment and deployment will make me a better X-ray technician."
Cmdr. Tiffany Nelson, staff pathologist, and her laboratory staff had been busy getting the ship's lab up and running. Since much of the equipment has not been used since Comfort's participation in humanitarian assistance in Haiti a year ago, it required time and maintenance.
"We've been getting instruments ready, getting supplies onboard and working to get the staff ready for the mission," Nelson said.
Despite the long hours and hard work, Nelson is looking forward to the deployment.
"We are working with a smaller staff, which means we all get to be more involved in each element of the lab," Nelson said. "We are all expanding our knowledge, and I know I have a great team that will be able to handle the high demand that will be required of them."
The ship lab functions like a hospital lab, performing pre-surgery tests and other microbiology services. The lab staff will also work ashore when Comfort pulls into a port, drawing blood and performing other routine services.
"We're trying to provide a range of laboratory services to help our patients as much as possible," Nelson said.
Just like with the lab, the pharmacy also had a lot of pre-deployment work. They had to separate the medications into portions for each country to make sure each gets the appropriate amount. Pre-packaged medication will be sent ashore with doctors to care for patients off the ship.
Lt. Laura Modafferi, a pharmacist, has found the ship environment to be very different from that of NMCP.
"Pre-packing the medication is something that is unique to me. I'm used to having patients walk up to the window and get their medications," Modafferi explained. "Here, we will work with such limited supplies that pre-packing is essential. We will also work more collaboratively with the doctors, which is great. They helped us decide which medications we need and how much of each for the countries."
The Comfort's deployments were well known to Modafferi even before she became a pharmacist.
"The mission is awesome. I heard a lot about the ship before I was in the Navy and now being onboard is really exciting," Modafferi said. "As a pharmacist, this is my only opportunity to deploy. I volunteered to experience a different side of my job and the Navy."
Although the crew from NMCP is mostly doctors and corpsmen, other jobs are an integral part of the ship's operation as well, including masters-at-arms and culinary specialists.
Stationed at NMCP for more than a year, Master-at-Arms Seaman Nash Theofanos jumped at the opportunity to serve on Comfort.
"I think this mission is one of the most important that the Navy does," Theofanos said. "It allows the world to see the good we do, and to see that the military isn't just about war."
A southern California native, Theofanos is most excited about the travel and the chance to see Peru and Jamaica.
As the ship departed from the pier, Theofanos, Modafferi, Nelson and Reid are ready to go and excited about the mission.
"This is very exciting and certainly going to be interesting to see these different countries and cultures," Nelson said. "We really want to help these countries meet the needs of their people. We're looking forward to learning from them just as much as we're hoping to teach them and share with them any knowledge we can. It's a wonderful opportunity on every front."
Comfort will participate in Continuing Promise until August.
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