We are Comforted - USNS Comfort

We have known about the USNS Comfort coming to Jamaica for several months and have been in communication with Church Headquarters and finally two weeks ago the US Navy.  Yes, it was official and they would like us to assist as volunteers.  Wednesday, the USNS Comfort pulled into Kingston Harbor and the Navy began setting up at the National stadium site to administer dental, optical, general medicine, physical therapy and some pediatric care to the general public.  They began pre-screening surgeries of patients that the Ministry of Health had referred to them.  It's a once in a lifetime experience and we are glad it was part of our lifetime here.

This is our tour group, Fitches in blue are on-board the ship running LDS efforts.

Thursday, we were able to tour the ship and were able to take Susan Moore from Food for the Poor and President Deans the District President of Spanish Town and all the senior missionaries.  This is a big humanitarian effort.  LDS Charities (The Church) provided 8 semi-truck loads of medical supplies for the trip.  This will be a five months cruise going throughout South America and then end in Haiti.
Our volunteer effort is to do crowd control at the "unsecured" entry point so that the crowds of 700 or more can be served each day.  The Navy will provide care for about 220 adults in general medicine, 180 children will be served, 130 or so dental patients and 200 or so optical patients.  We have had so many people show up that we have had to turn a lot of people away.

A little about the ship:

The ship is a converted oil tanker that they "gutted it and dropped in a hospital."  There are 4 wards 'forward' and 8 wards 'aft'.  (you have to use correct nautical terms or they will throw you out one of those little round windows).

The Comfort was built for use as a combat casualty hospital.  The ship also provides disaster relief around the world, and its current mission: Continuing Promise - is a quality of life Humanitarian mission.  Right now, the Navy has 10 ships helping in Japan.

There are only two helicopters on the ship - storage is a problem.  However, when the Comfort was helping in Haiti they had two helicopters landing every 6 minutes...so their capacity is much larger.

The Comfort is based in Baltimore, Maryland and can be ready for duty with only 5 days notice!

The ship carries 30 thousand gallons of fuel.  It takes in sea water, processes it and uses it for drinking, cooking, and all other water uses on board.  They make their own oxygen, also.  

Inside one of the operating rooms.

Recovery

Surgical rooms are in the middle of the ship - providing the maximum stability - if the sea gets rough - they pull up anchor and go around in circles which keep the operating rooms more stable!  They can do a maximum of 32 operations a day.

There is a full modern laboratory, burn unit, physical therapy, ICU, labor and delivery, and a great 'spin room' for exercising.  The ship provides education to the native health care people - even Vet services for cattle! They repair medical equipment and are doing research on diseases in ships both Navy and cruise ships.

The Comfort has a state of the art CAT -scan machine.  When the Comfort is docked in Baltimore, it has the largest blood bank in the whole USA!

The USNS Comfort docked in Kingston Harbor.

LDS Charities is very much involved with this mission. There are 26 LDS nurses and doctors and other personnel on board here in Jamaica.  Only 12 of them will stay with the mission the whole 5 months - others will come and go...all in all there will be 71 LDS professionals involved.  Elder and Sister Fitch are the leaders while at sea.  Elder Fitch is a Captain Retired and a dentist - and the Priesthood Group Leader for the whole 5 months.  They are both set apart Church Service Missionaries.   Elder Fitch told us that the doctors leave their practice for 4-6 weeks, and when the mission is completed the LDS personnel will have donated over 5,000 man days - 12 hour days!  A side note:  The ship needs language translation while in Latin America - they have 5 on board and called Salt Lake to see if they could arrange for more.  Salt Lake asked the Navy how many more do you needed?  The Navy said they could use at least 5.  Salt Lake told them they could provide over 50 at each stop!  Gotta love those LDS missionaries around the world!!

They are short on storage space. This is a long hallway of donated supplies.