USNS Comfort
USNS Comfort is a of the United States Navy.
Comforts duties include providing emergency, on-site care for U.S. combatant forces deployed in war or other operations. Operated by the Military Sealift Command, Comfort provides rapid, flexible, and mobile medical and surgical services to support Marine Corps Air-Ground Task Forces and Army and Air Force units deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat. Secondarily, she provides mobile surgical hospital service for use by appropriate U.S. government agencies in disaster or humanitarian relief or limited humanitarian care incident to these missions or peacetime military operations. Comfort is more advanced than a field hospital but less capable than a traditional hospital on land.Baltimore Sun">
From 30 March to 30 April 2020, Comfort was stationed in New York City to help combat the city's coronavirus pandemic by treating non-coronavirus, and later on, coronavirus-positive patients. She had been stationed there previously following the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, to bolster the city's civilian medical services in the aftermath.
Complement
The USNS prefix identifies Comfort as a non-commissioned ship owned by the U.S. Navy and operationally crewed by civilians from the Military Sealift Command. A uniformed naval hospital staff and naval support staff is embarked when the Comfort is deployed, consisting primarily of naval officers from the Navy's Medical Corps, Dental Corps, Medical Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Chaplain Corps, and naval enlisted personnel from the Hospital Corpsman rating and various administrative and technical support ratings.In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, Comfort and her crew carry no offensive weapons. Firing upon Comfort would be considered a war crime as the ship only carries weapons for self-defense. In keeping with her status as a non-combatant vessel, naval personnel from the combat specialties are not assigned as regular crew or staff. Underway embarks by Navy Unrestricted Line officers, enlisted Naval Aviation, Surface Warfare, Submarine Warfare, Special Operations or Special Warfare/SEAL personnel, or any Marine Corps officers or enlisted personnel, are typically limited to official visits, helicopter or tilt-rotor flight operations or as patients.
Construction and conversion
Like her sister ship, Comfort was built as a oil tanker in 1976 by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company. Her original name was SS Rose City and she was launched from San Diego, California. She is the third United States Navy ship to bear the name Comfort, and the second Mercy-class hospital ship. Her career as an oil tanker ended when she was delivered to the U.S. Navy on 1 December 1987.After a quarter-century in Baltimore, Maryland, Comfort changed her homeport to Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Virginia in March 2013. The move placed the ship closer to supplies, much of which come from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, and to medical crew. Savings to the U.S. Navy are estimated at $2 million per year.
Deployments
Persian Gulf War (1990–91)
During the Gulf War, Comfort received a call to activate for Desert Shield/Desert Storm 9 August 1990 and left Baltimore on 11 August. Comfort took station just off the coast of Saudi Arabia near Khafji and Kuwait. On 12 March 1991, Comfort headed home, arriving in Baltimore on 15 April 1991. She had traveled more than and consumed almost of fuel. More than 8,000 outpatients were seen, and 700 inpatients were admitted, including four sailors injured in a high-pressure steam leak on. 337 surgical procedures were performed. Other notable benchmarks include: more than 2,100 safe helicopter activities; 7,000 prescriptions filled; 17,000 laboratory tests completed; 1,600 eyeglasses made; 800,000 meals served and 1,340 radiographic studies, including 141 CT scans.Operation Sea Signal (1994)
In 1994, Comfort was ordered to serve as a processing center for Haitian migrants, the first ship to act as such a center. She set out for the Caribbean with 928 military and civilian personnel from various federal government and international agencies. On 16 June 1994 the first Haitian migrants were taken aboard. Over the months, her population swelled to 1,100. Shortly thereafter, Comfort sailed for Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, to drop off the remaining 400 migrants.Operation Uphold Democracy (1994)
On 2 September 1994, Comfort was directed to activate for an unprecedented second deployment in a year. Comfort was tasked to provide a 250-bed medically intensive patient capability for the 35,000 Cuban and Haitian migrants supported by Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Comfort departed Naval Base Norfolk, Virginia, with a specially configured crew of 566 personnel. Following the diplomatic agreement reached between the United States and Haiti, Comfort took up a position off Port-au-Prince ready to receive casualties that might result from the transfer of U.S. and allied forces ashore. From 16 September through 2 October 1994, Comfort personnel provided both medical and surgical support to U.S. and allied forces ashore and afloat, emergency humanitarian care to injured Haitian citizens, and participated in various aspects of the Civil Affairs Program in an effort to aid the rebuilding effort of the local healthcare system. She returned to Norfolk on 14 October 1994.Operation Noble Eagle (2001)
Comfort was activated the afternoon of 11 September 2001, in response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and sailed the next afternoon to serve as a 250-bed hospital facility at Pier 92 in midtown Manhattan. The ship arrived at Pier 92 in Manhattan about 8:30 p.m. 14 September. That evening a small number of relief workers arrived aboard the ship. As word about the ship spread, more workers began arriving over the next few days. The ship's clinic saw 561 guests for cuts, respiratory ailments, fractures, and other minor injuries, and Comforts team of Navy psychology personnel provided 500 mental health consultations to relief workers. Comfort also hosted a group of volunteer New York area massage therapists who gave 1,359 therapeutic medical massages to ship guests.Iraq War (2002–03)
Comfort was ordered to activate on 26 December 2002, and set sail for the U.S. Central Command area of operations on 6 January 2003. After stopping in Diego Garcia to embark additional medical personnel flown in from the National Naval Medical Center, the ship proceeded to the Persian Gulf to serve as an afloat trauma center in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Comfort remained in the Persian Gulf for 56 days providing expert medical care to wounded U.S. military personnel as well as injured Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war. When Comfort returned to Baltimore on 12 June 2003, it marked the completion of a nearly six-month activation. During this time, the ship conducted more than 800 helicopter deck landings to bring aboard personnel, patients, and cargo. Comforts Medical Treatment Facility had also performed 590 surgical procedures, transfused more than 600 units of blood, developed more than 8,000 radiographic images, and treated nearly 700 patients, including almost 200 Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war.Hurricane Katrina (2005)
Comfort deployed on 2 September 2005, after only a two-day preparation, to assist in Gulf Coast recovery efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Starting in Pascagoula, Mississippi and then sailing to New Orleans, Comfort personnel saw 1,956 patients total. She returned on 13 October 2005 after a 7-week deployment.Partnership for the Americas (2007)
Comforts Partnership for the Americas humanitarian mission, which began on 15 June 2007, was a major component of the President's "Advancing the Cause of Social Justice in the Western Hemisphere" initiative. Comfort visited 12 Central American, South American, and Caribbean nations where her embarked medical crew provided free health care services to communities in need. The missions objective was to offer valuable training to U.S. military personnel while promoting U.S. goodwill in the region. In all, the civilian and military medical team treated more than 98,000 patients, provided 386,000 patient encounters and performed 1,100 surgeries.The embarked medical crew was made up of more than 500 military and non-governmental organization doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals. Their primary focus was to support medical humanitarian assistance efforts ashore. A secondary mission was outpatient shipboard health service support.
Also supporting Comforts medical mission was a SEABEE detachment from the East Coast-based Mobile Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 202, which performed civic action repair and minor construction projects in the host countries. Also on the deployment was the U.S. Navy Showband from Norfolk, Virginia, which performed in each port.
Comfort was operated and navigated by a crew of 68 civil service mariners from the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command.
This mission incorporated various non-government organizations and government agencies, such as Operation Smile, Project Hope, LDS Humanitarian Services, the Atlanta Rotary Club, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army, U.S. Health and Human Services and the Canadian Armed Forces.
Patient encounters included a single patient receiving multiple treatments, students in training sessions, and even veterinary care services.
Dentists and staff treated 25,000 patients, extracting 300 teeth, and performing 4,000 fillings, 7,000 sealings, and 20,000 fluoride applications. In addition to treating patients, bio-medical professionals fixed about a thousand pieces of medical equipment at local health facilities. The ship's crew also delivered nearly $200,000 worth of donated humanitarian aid.