Health Diplomacy Weekly Update
Week # 2: 20 June – 27 June
In response to both Presidential and Secretarial initiatives, the Office of Force Readiness and Deployment in the Office of Public Health and Science’s Office of the Surgeon General, is currently deploying teams of commissioned officers on two separate Navy ships undertaking health diplomacy missions. The USNS COMFORT is on a 4 month mission to 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The USS PELELIU is on a 3 month mission to 6 Pacific Rim and Pacific Island countries.
USNS COMFORT
USPHS Officer-in-Charge (OIC): CAPT Craig Shepherd
- COMFORT arrived in Belize 20 June. They are now underway to Guatemala.
- Current USPHS detachment: 6 physicians, 2 dentists, 4 dental hygienists, 2 nurses, 2 environmental health officers (including OIC), 1 engineer, 1 veterinarian.
- Team 1 members going ashore typically muster at 0500 in the morning and are underway by way of a rented catamaran. In addition to going ashore to see patients several patients are being transported to COMFORT via boat, and few by helicopter. The dentists and dental hygienists are going out three to five days straight. As mentioned before they muster at 0500 and are on the boat heading for shore by 0530.
- CAPT Bravo, CDR Johnson and LCDR Goodman were at Valley of Peace treating dental patients. The dental clinic was staged in a school building with windows and doors wide-open to allow for air circulation and additional natural light. In the same building but different school room patients were being seen by several different types of providers, Internal Medicine and Family Practice Physicians and others. At the same time Navy Seabees were repairing this building. Intense activity and locals from the community were lined-up the length of the building.
- LCDR Rockwell, a veterinarian, went to Valley of Peace and had 16 encounters including, rabies vaccination, de-worming and topical flea and tick treatment.
- As COMFORT personnel were riding on the buses to the Valley of Peace they stopped so assist at the site of a motor vehicle accident involving another bus. One person was dead and one more person was seriously injured. CDR Singer and a few others on the bus from the COMFORT Sickbay provided medical assistance until a local ambulance arrived.
Devoney Sallach Watson Downs hanger bay
USS PELELIU
USPHS OIC: CAPT Kathleen Downs
- PELELIU has been functioning in the Bicol region of the Philippines.
- Current USPHS detachment: 1 physician, 2 environmental engineers, 1 pharmacist (OIC)
- CAPT Watson, a preventive medicine physician, in conjunction with nurse educators, has been involved in the development and teaching of a curriculum for educating community based health workers. They are offering 10 classes; reaching approximately 450 community based health workers. Example topics include: safe food and water management; dengue; rabies; diabetes; and avian flu.
- CDR Devoney and LCDR Sallach, both engineers, assessed a camp for internally displaced persons. They evaluated the water and sanitation system set-up. They’ve been meeting with the water management officials and discussing the water distribution system for the city of Legaspi. They are currently evaluating a small COMMREL (community relations) project being considered by the PELELIU Pacific Partnership.
- CAPT Downs is participating in planning for and training participants in MEDCAPS and -DENTCAPS ashore. She is also planning upcoming missions in Vietnam.
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Page last modified: June 29, 2007