Entries tagged “Navy”

Photo by ussouthcom

This is the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship sent to Haiti as part of the US military’s “Operation Unified Response.” The Comfort is a massive ship (just 100 feet shorter than an aircraft carrier) whose 1,000 person crew includes a 550-person strong medical team. It is a fully capable hospital offering 12 operating rooms and 80 intensive care beds.

Comfort’s size, however, seems to be no match for the effects of a devastating earthquake on an impoverished population — and resources are being pushed to extreme limits:

The ship’s space and supplies are overtaxed, forcing the crew to contemplate declining new admissions. The injuries are so abundant and severe that an otherwise acceptable caseload is unmanageable, forcing providers to choose between declining care and forgoing rest and food.

And the emotional demands of caring for the earthquake victims are made worse by the realization that the ship might have to accept a reduced standard of care for Haitian patients, who don’t have the luxuries of long-term rehabilitation or evacuation to the United States.

“Even if every day we could have a critical-care flight of 20 patients out of here, we wouldn’t be able to keep up,” said Capt. Andrew Johnson, the ship’s director of medical operations.

That reality, Johnson said, is forcing the medical staff to consider declining care to some critically injured patients, if only to free up room and resources that could be used to save more people.

That a ship operating nearly a mile off the coast of Port-au-Prince is currently Haiti’s most capable hospital speaks volumes about the level of crisis being faced there.

The U.S.S. New York sailed up the Hudson to a midtown dock this morning. The technologically advanced “amphibious transport dock” will be officially commissioned in Manhattan on Saturday. The New York is named in honor of those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks and has 7.5 tons of steel reclaimed from the Twin Towers in its bow.

Of note for those in the NYC area: The public is invited to tour the New York on select days November 4 through November 11.