Story Number: NNS070815-05
Release Date: 8/15/2007 8:52:00 AM


By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jeff Hall, USNS Comfort Public Affairs

Aboard USNS Comfort (NNS) --
Personnel deployed with hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) hit the halfway mark of their four-month humanitarian deployment while setting up for medical operations in Ecuador Aug. 15.

Joint forces, civil service mariners, Canadian forces and volunteers from Project Hope and Operation Smile, non-government organizations, spent the first two months working to improve the quality of life for thousands of patients through medical care, training and infrastructure improvement projects.

“Overall, our mission has been incredibly successful,” said Capt. Bob Kapcio, Comfort’s mission commander. “All of the personnel deployed with Comfort have put in long, hard hours to see this mission get accomplished, and to see the smiles on the patient’s faces when they leave Comfort. The reaction of the people we meet shows we are making an impact everywhere we go.”

Comfort set up medical treatment sites for patients in Belize, Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Peru. The range of care offered at the sites included general medicine, optometry, dentistry, pediatrics and gynecology.

Patients in need of more intensive care, including surgeries, were screened at the medical treatment sites then transported via helicopter or boat to Comfort. Comfort performed a variety of surgeries, including those to repair a club foot, hysterectomies, hernias and removing tumors.

Operation Smile, which specializes in treating cleft palates, came aboard in Nicaragua and Peru to perform surgeries. Using Comfort’s operating rooms, Operation Smile surgeons performed facial surgeries on children and adults.

Project Hope provided medical training to local care providers throughout the six countries Comfort has visited. The training concentrated on first-response care using common household objects to perform procedures from splinting to delivering a baby and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Seabees from Combat Battalion Maintenance Unit 202 also provided long-term benefits. Working alongside volunteers, Seabees helped repair hospitals and schools. Their projects included painting, roof replacement, plumbing and electrical repair, and installing new playground and sports equipment, as well as general infrastructure improvements at each site they visited.

Similarly, biomedical repair technicians repaired a range of equipment, from washing machines to sterilizers, in hospitals and clinics. Pre-deployment teams scoured Comfort’s potential medical sites to locate equipment in need of repair. Following the visits, the biomedical teams ordered parts and equipment needed to make the repairs.

Comfort personnel also helped deliver donated medical equipment from Project Handclasp. Project Handclasp takes donated materials from around the United States and sends it with Navy ships for distribution around the world.

Each of these operations played into the larger Comfort mission, to create short- and long-term effects for each nation visited.

Comfort departed Norfolk June 15 on a mission of compassion and commitment to the Caribbean and Latin America. The deployment, part of Partnership for the Americas, will take Comfort to six more nations before returning to the United States in mid-October.

“With this group of hard-working individuals, dedicated to helping others around the world, we intend to make the same impact on those we help in the next two months,” said Kapcio. “We want to leave a footprint of hope and compassion that will last a lifetime.”