Comfort care for critical PR patients

CARIBBEAN SEA - The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20), underway near the coast of the Arecibo-Manati region of Puerto Rico, received four critical patients from Hospital Menonita in Caguas, Puerto Rico, after the hospital’s generator failed Oct. 6. "We are a mobile platform that can respond to the greatest area of need or act as a strut to help the Puerto Rican health system," said Capt. Kevin Buckley, commanding officer of the medical treatment facility onboard Comfort. "We are engaged and determined to relieve human suffering." Patients were medevaced by USS Wasp (LHD 1) and USNS Comfort's Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 22 detachments. Comfort has treated 75 patients ranging from six months to 89 years of age, and performed numerous procedures, including an abdomen-wall gastrostomy tube placement, colectomies, sacral-decubitus ulcer tissue removal, and treatment of wounds, hernias and pneumonia. (Source: USNS Comfort 10/07/17) Gulf Coast Note: The Naval Hospital Pensacola, Fla., command has 19 sailors, including personnel from the hospital, and Naval Branch Health Clinics at Meridian, Miss., and Millington, Tenn. The senior officer and enlisted personnel are Cmdr. Kathryn Garner, a medical-surgical nurse, and Chief Hospital Corpsman Jonathan Pruss.