Washington — Seamen assigned to a U.S. naval
hospital ship are loading supplies on board as the ship gets ready
for a four-and-half month voyage to help four Southeast Asian
countries prepare for natural calamities.
The USNS Mercy leaves its home port of San Diego May 1 bound for
Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia. It will spend 14
days in each country to help local governments and aid providers to
prepare for natural disasters.
Earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis and volcanoes periodically
afflict the four countries that lie in the region known as the
“ring of fire.”
The USNS Mercy’s mission, labeled Pacific Partnership 2012, is
undertaken to train militaries and civilians to work together in a
coordinated response before the next disaster strikes. “We’re
preparing in calm to respond in crisis,” said U.S. Navy Captain
James Morgan, the mission commander.
The Pacific Partnership, now in its seventh year, sprang out of
the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia and surrounding
countries. Partners in this year’s mission include 12 other
countries on the Asia-Pacific rim and representatives from many
nonprofit groups and international agencies.
“Nongovernmental organizations and the international agencies
are a critical part of the continuity that maintains and builds
capacity with local populations from year to year,” Morgan said. He
added that the value of multiple entities working together was
evident in March 2011 in the global response to the earthquake and
tsunami that struck northern Japan.
Jonathan Olmstead, the captain of USNS Mercy, was part of the
2011 Japan relief effort, known as Operation Tomodachi, as well
Pacific Partnership 2009 and the Indonesian tsunami relief
operation. He said he knows “firsthand what an impact we will have
on the local populations we’ll visit and in building relationships
… to overcome the adversity of the natural disaster.”
The USNS Mercy was built originally as an oil tanker before its
conversion to a floating hospital in 1986. The ship has 12
operating rooms and the full array of capabilities found in a
first-rate, land-based hospital. The medical and health care
personnel aboard the ship will conduct medical, dental
and veterinary clinics ashore and will participate
in professional symposiums, conferences, exercises and doctor round
tables. “And for the first time, we expect to conduct a live VTC
[video teleconference] surgery for instruction purposes,” Morgan
said.
The ship will anchor offshore in each country because of the
absence of pier facilities where the ship may tie up. “To move
doctors, nurses, and patients back and forth, we will be operating
two 11-meter utility boats, 12 to 16 hours per day, ferrying
passengers from ship to shore and back,” Olmstead said.
The ship is slated to return to San Diego in mid-September.
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(2012-04-23 16:14:26) 