The U.S. Military Sealift Command (MSC) reports that its Seafarers-crewed hospital ship USNS Comfort returned to Baltimore’s Canton Pier on October 13, following a six-week hurricane relief mission in the U.S. Gulf Coast region.Members of the SIU’s Government Services Division fill the unlicensed positions aboard the Comfort and also on her sister ship, the USNS Mercy.
According to MSC, the Comfort was activated in support of FEMA’s Hurricane Katrina relief efforts on Aug. 31 and sailed from her Baltimore homeport on Sept. 2. “After stopping in Mayport, Fla., to load additional supplies and personnel, Comfort and her crew of more than 600 U.S. Navy Sailors, civil service mariners and Project HOPE volunteers, arrived in Pascagoula, Miss, on Sept. 9,” the agency reported. “In 10 days, Comfort’s medical staff treated 1,452 patients aboard ship and 376 patients ashore at the Comfort Clinic, a temporary medical facility set up at the city’s Singing River Mall. Members of the ship’s civil service mariner crew also contributed to relief efforts by repairing a local church badly damaged by the storm. On Sept. 20, the ship left Pascagoula in order to evade Hurricane Rita.
“On Sept. 27, Comfort received orders to sail for New Orleans. After a 10-hour transit up the Mississippi River, Comfort arrived in the city Sept. 28.
“While in New Orleans, the ship served as an emergency trauma center as the city began to repopulate. During this time, Comfort’s medical staff worked alongside local civilian physicians from Louisiana State University aboard ship in a partnership between the Navy and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.”
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