Hospital Ships

USMCGrunt

USMCGrunt

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So who can tell me about these hospital ships being called up to support the U.S. Coronavirus efforts?

I knew we had them in WWII but had no idea they will still around. I certainly never saw one on the evolutions I participated in.

Are they part of the Fleet? Are they truly non-combatant or do they carry self-defense guns? Are they manned by US Navy personnel?

I am hoping my Navy brethren can help me out
 
USMCGrunt said:
So who can tell me about these hospital ships being called up to support the U.S. Coronavirus efforts?

I knew we had them in WWII but had no idea they will still around. I certainly never saw one on the evolutions I participated in.

Are they part of the Fleet? Are they truly non-combatant or do they carry self-defense guns? Are they manned by US Navy personnel?

I am hoping my Navy brethren can help me out
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A lot of questions I don't know the answer to but they are often elsewhere in the world providing medical care for third world countries.

More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Comfort_(T-AH-20)
 
USNS COMFORT (LantFlt) and USNS MERCY (PacFlt) were converted from tankers to hospital ships. They are United States Naval Ships (USNS) vessels, operated by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command with Federal civil service mariners. The embarked hospital component is drawn from AD Navy staff from East Coast MTF’s. Can’t recall under what circumstances Reserve units are activated. When the ships are not deployed and not operationally active, a maintenance master and crew are assigned, and usually an 0-5, head of the permanent medical mildet assigned. The ships exercise regularly inport and at sea. The CIVMAR crew and hospital staff ramp up for exercises and deployments.

COMFORT went to NYC post-9/11. MERCY went on tsunami relief a few years ago. They are wonderful for soft projection of US presence.

They can support humanitarian missions and combat trauma.

I had the privilege and of working closely with COMFORT when I was AD. Completely awesome ship, crew, med staff.

It’s my understanding COMFORT will be supporting non-COVID-19 medical and surgical cases as NYC medical facilities take the strain of virus care.
 
I retired from Military Sealift Command where I was the Shipboard Medical Programs manager. I owned every medical space, medical services officer (MSO), and several million dollars worth of AMMAL across all programs except for the T-AHs. They thankfully belonged to another code, but I was involved with them tangentially. The only thing that truly belonged to me were the Independent Duty Corpsman when they were attached and that was in a training and program management role. Capt MJ covered most everything but I'll add that like many military treatment facilities these days, the Mercy and Comfort are also billeted by tri-service medical personnel.

When I was in the yards in Norfolk on my third ship, the Comfort was in the yard next to us. We were told that she was to be painted and told the dates. I was driving an old but reliable F-150 with a three tone paint job. Red, gray, and rust. I didn't mind walking out to the old beast after knock off one day to find white dots of paint on it. Those with newer cars though, especially those with shiny black or red, or any shiny color really, were livid. They had white dots of paint all over their cars. It must have been windy that day. The next day the parking lot was almost empty. I drove right in and found a nice spot close to the ship. A few days later the ship's office handed out forms to file a claim against he government to have the paint removed from our vehicles. I didn't take one.
 
Capt MJ said:
The embarked hospital component is drawn from AD Navy staff from East Coast MTF’s. Can’t recall under what circumstances Reserve units are activated.
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Medical Staff is drown from Naval Hospitals/Active duty sources. They are then in turn supposed to be backfilled by Reservists and that is how it has been done in the past but could be a problem this time because the vast majority of the Reservists are medical people in their civilian jobs and thus probably deeply involved in this crisis already. It ill be quite a balancing act to make sure that the current civilian response efforts are not hampered by losing their practitioners to Bethesda, Portsmouth, etc.
 
Devil Doc said:
When I was in the yards in Norfolk on my third ship, the Comfort was in the yard next to us. We were told that she was to be painted and told the dates. I was driving an old but reliable F-150 with a three tone paint job. Red, gray, and rust. I didn't mind walking out to the old beast after knock off one day to find white dots of paint on it. Those with newer cars though, especially those with shiny black or red, or any shiny color really, were livid. They had white dots of paint all over their cars. It must have been windy that day. The next day the parking lot was almost empty. I drove right in and found a nice spot close to the ship. A few days later the ship's office handed out forms to file a claim against he government to have the paint removed from our vehicles. I didn't take one.
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Totally off topic, but I saw multiple situations aboard Camp Pendleton when helicopters landed to pick up Infantry Marines and sandblasted the personal vehicles. There were a lot of unhappy people.
 
USMCGrunt said:
Totally off topic, but I saw multiple situations aboard Camp Pendleton when helicopters landed to pick up Infantry Marines and sandblasted the personal vehicles. There were a lot of unhappy people.
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Surely the pilots didn't do that on purpose.
 
Both T-AHs in Nov 90 during Desert Storm. Photo taken by Tom Balfour who was assigned to Comfort. He was a Navy Corpsman, a medical photographer, and is now a civilian and the senior medical photographer at USUHS. One ship was at anchor and the other steaming past so Tom, flying in a helo, had a small window in which to snap the shot.

E569EAD9-B71B-4A75-A284-47256B0E7332.jpeg
 
USMCGrunt said:
Totally off topic, but I saw multiple situations aboard Camp Pendleton when helicopters landed to pick up Infantry Marines and sandblasted the personal vehicles. There were a lot of unhappy people.
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For what it's worth, we normally give a warning that gets totally ignored.
 
Opinion piece on using corpsmen and medics in the COVID-19 fight. I betcha there will be movement toward calling on veterans and retirees to help.

“The U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman is the most uniquely trained military medic between all of the armed services,” Joe Hamm PA-C, a former Navy Corpsman and Physician Assistant Instructor told us. “Hospital Corpsman skills and training are the envy of other services. You can take a Hospital Corpsman anywhere in any condition, train them and they will deliver. They have proven it in armed conflicts and real-world operations, so much so, the Duke’s PA Program was based off U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsmen”

www.msnbc.com

Calling All Corpsmen-In this Time of Pandemic

Calling All Corpsmen-In this Time of Pandemic
www.msnbc.com www.msnbc.com
 
There was today. Call went out to gauge interest to retirees and veterans for certain medical MOS's to see if they would want to return to assist if necessary. They don't want to pull from the reserves, because the assumption is they're part of the domestic healthcare system in their civilian job already.
 
Hurricane12 said:
For what it's worth, we normally give a warning that gets totally ignored.
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I think one of my best helicopter landing places stories was landing into the same LZ all day supporting a range, when the last time I went into land, we ended up blowing a tent over that rolled into a vehicle parked next to the LZ. Neither of those are exactly recommended: parking a car right next to a hard stand, marked active LZ or putting a tent, unsecured right next to said LZ. The poor LT had to come find me to get my information for the FLIPL that proceeded, but it all came down to them being idiots not paying attention to the radio.
 
for humanitarian missions the staff is augmented by Navy Reserve, volunteers from the Army and Navy as well as some civilian medical staff. With the transition to DHA joint staffing by all 3 services will be the norm in the future.
 
Capt MJ said:
Did I hear COMFORT gets u/w this Saturday for Pier 90 in NYC? Now that’s a turn and burn ramp-up.
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Per the news....Trump says USNS Comfort, world's biggest hospital ship, will embark to NYC to treat coronavirus. I agree on the turn and burn ramp-up.
 
A few days ago her role was to treat non-corona to relieve pressure on local hospitals for med-surg cases. I think it’s all very fluid.
 
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