USNS Mercy sets sail

[JohnRN]

USNS Mercy Leaves For Southeast Asia

Last Updated:
01-05-05 at 5:15PM



The 1,000-bed hospital ship USNS Mercy departed Naval Station San Diego today en route to the Indian Ocean to aid victims of the earthquake and tsunamis in south Asia.

It will take the 894-foot ship about 30 days to reach the region, according to U.S. Navy public affairs.

For the mission, called Operation Unified Assistance, the ship's facilities will be staffed to support 250 patient beds, with the option to expand to 1,000 beds if necessary.

Equipment and supplies will be available to treat a wide variety of patients from young children to the elderly, according to the Navy.

Mercy will serve as a base of operations and provide warehousing for joint military medical organizations and non-government relief groups.

Once it arrives in the region, it will support medical units ashore with internal medicine, pediatric, dental, OB/GYN, mental health and infectious disease care, according to the Navy.

Navy officials said it was likely that the focus of care for the mission will be on patients suffering from illness or infections, but there are 12 operating rooms on board if needed.

About 275 medical and support personnel set sail with Mercy, which is based in San Diego, to ready the ship for the humanitarian mission. The remaining hospital staff will join the ship in January.

Sixty-four Navy civilian mariners operate the vessel.

Mercy is one of two Navy hospital ships. Her sister ship, USNS Comfort, is berthed in Baltimore, Md., and has not been ordered to activate.

The Dec. 26 magnitude-9 earthquake and resulting tsunamis, which swept across the Indian Ocean and impacted the coastlines of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other nations, killed an estimated 155,000 people.

Disaster relief has poured in from nations around the world. Pledges of financial help from the international community have topped $3 billion. The United States has committed $350 million in aid, and sent the San Diego-based Bonhomme Richard Strike Group, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and numerous aircraft to the region to help.

http://www.kfmb.com/stories/story.2938.html

Some more good news...

[se0sea]

that is good news.
I hope this ship has escorts to protect them from any terrorist threats.
hope you forgive my way of thinking,but my senses have drastically changed with all the events going on.

[JohnRN]

Far as I canr ecall - there are already two carrier groups in the area (I believe one is centered around the USS Abraham Lincoln)

[Hoss68]

Navy civilian mariners

What exactly is that? Like a Merchant Marine?

This is good news, but what worries me is that by the time they get there it will be mostly infectious disease in the aftermath. And that by then it will be too late for so many more...

[82nd Airborne Dad]

Originally Posted by Hoss68

What exactly is that? Like a Merchant Marine?

This is good news, but what worries me is that by the time they get there it will be mostly infectious disease in the aftermath. And that by then it will be too late for so many more...

My guess is that they have the ship there to handle the long-term rehabilitation and recovery of the survivors. Many there will not be survivors, but they don't know it yet!! Sad we can't do more faster, but when countries are ill prepared it will result in many losses. Maybe someday we'll have better response time.

Also I think if the thread of terrorism wasn't such an issue, there could be more ships of this type out in the world in well dispersed locations, but I am sure they would just become terrorist's targets. Again we will be blamed for not helping enough.

[RetPara]

The Mercy and the Comfort are the only two hospital ships in the world at this time. They both are converted tankers that came on line in the mid-80's.

There is also the SS Hope (Project Hope) which has been operating in the region since 1958.

http://www.projecthope.org

[sailordoc]

Some answers ...

The U.S. Navy Hospital ships are escorted by a "mini battle group" for protection. In an operational theater, such as when Operation Iraqi Freedom started, the USNS Comfort (out of Norfolk) was actually a trailing member of a carrier battle group.

The SS Hope used to be the USNS Hope and saw prolonged duty off the coast of Vietnam before it was turned "civilian". The Comfort and the Mercy are state-of-the-art and were built to replace the Hope and another USNS hospital ship who's name escapes me at the moment.

Because our aircraft carriers are now equipped with multiple-bed trauma centers in their hospitals, the Mercy and the Comfort are used for "backup" when the number of casualties is expected to exceed the capability of the carriers in theater. Other Navy ships also have hospitals, of course, but the carriers serve as regional trauma centers.

The Mercy and Comfort are also much slower than battle-group ships. One of the main problems with disasters such as the tsunami is the disease that follows within a few weeks due to minor wounds that become infected and turn into major medical ordeals. A number of communicable diseases also take two or three weeks to incubate, such as typhus and cholera, just to name a couple. So, the Mercy will be arriving right on time when that phase of the disaster becomes a serious problem.

"Navy Civilian Mariners" should not be confused with the U.S. Merchant Marine. The Navy purposely assigns retired officers and other Navy-trained civilians to separate the medical mission the Comfort and Mercy accomplish from a military mission that a battle group is assigned to accomplish.

That's intended to reduce the "target value" of the two USNS ships but 09-11 obviously changed all of that now that the scumbag terrorists prefer killing civilians because they aren't armed like our military personnel are.
If you look closely at the Captain's uniform (of the USNS Mercy), you will notice it's slightly different than a regular Navy Captain's uniform. Sort of the same as with the Surgeon General's uniform.