NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. - The USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) is gearing up for another deployment.
The Navy hospital ship will deploy from Naval Station Norfolk at 8 a.m. on Friday, June 14 for a five-month deployment.
USNS Comfort
The Comfort will provide medical assistance to support regional partners and in response to the regional impacts of the Venezuela political and economic crisis.
It deployed on a similar mission to help Venezuelan refugees last October, returning to Hampton Roads in December.
While deployed, the ship will conduct mission stops in Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago.
The ship's medical personnel will work alongside a variety of governmental agencies to provide medical assistance to communities based on needs identified by host nation health ministries and to relieve pressure on host nation medical systems in countries hosting Venezuelans who have fled the country's crisis.
Though the Comfort's crew size will be tailored depending on the area being assisted, approximately 1,000 U.S. and partner nation military doctors, nurses and technicians will work during the mission.
Each country's health ministry will determine how patients are seen, but the majority of those receiving care will be treated at the Comfort's land-based medical sites. Select patients may be chosen for the ships' on-board surgical services.
This will be the Comfort's seventh deployment to the region since 2007 and its second deployment to the Western Hemisphere in the last six months. It reflects the United States' enduring promise of friendship, partnership and solidarity with the people of the Americas.
