00:00The local media were given a tour of the U.S. Navy Mercy Class Hospital ship USNS Comfort a day after it arrived at the port of Port of Spain. The tour was led by Lieutenant Commander George Menager.
00:15We do take care of close to a thousand patients. So we have 80 beds on our ICU ward and we have about 800 plus beds in our wards. We have the forward and aft wards. So we have five wards forward of the ship and we have five wards after the ship.
00:39And so we have the ability to take patients down via an elevator, but we also, of course, have ladder wells we can bring them down.
00:48The U.S. Embassy said that local medical service will be provided by the Comfort staff from Thursday, August 7th to Saturday, August 9th.
00:56However, the embassy noted that members of the public advised that only those patients pre-selected by the Ministry of Health will receive treatment aboard the USNS Comfort.
01:07So on our humanitarian missions like this, we, when we screen our patients, we make sure that they're safe enough to come on board.
01:17For our patients that maybe need a little extra help, like we were explaining, we would take them to the ICU.
01:23So they're not necessarily a critically ill patient. Sometimes they just need a little bit more time to recover from anesthesia. Maybe they have a difficulty walking, so we would take them to the ICU.
01:37The media was showing one of the ICUs on board the Comfort.
01:41This is our main ICU that we like to use.
01:43And how many patients, like at max capacity, can this facilitate?
01:49This specific ICU can hold about 20 patients, but again, we have four ICUs. So we can do about 80 up.
01:56We were told that at the lab on board the Comfort, results could take 20 to 30 minutes, but at the med site, it could take about 2 to 20 minutes.
02:05How many lab samples would you test in this lab, let's say, during a stay like here in Trinidad?
02:11In Trinidad, so in Costa Rica, we had, I believe it was 2,200. So it's probably up to the 2,000s when we can test lab patients, that's how many patients we see.
02:23We get a lot of samples, especially for like pregnancy, for surgeries. We get a lot of tissue samples.
02:31We were also shown a surgical ward and given information about the Comfort pharmacy.
02:36We have medications for pain, GI, gastrointestinal, from head to toe, if you can think about it, we have topical creams, ointments.
02:46We're prepared for anything. That's what it's all about. It's readiness, and we're here to help.
02:51So, yeah, if you can think of it, we got it. We have 116 medications on our formulary and the med site.
02:56While the helicopter we were shown on the helipad of the vessel is not set to be in use,
03:00The lieutenant commander highlighted a key purpose of the Comfort's overall mission in response to a question from TV6 News.
03:07These humanitarian efforts are very important.
03:11You know, first and foremost, it's, we want to provide patient care to all our friendly host nations.
03:20And so we just want to be, you know, good neighbors and build that rapport with all of the host nations here in the Caribbean.
03:28The U.S. Embassy said medical teams from the U.S. and S. Comfort will collaborate with the Health Ministry and Trinidad and Tobago health care professionals
03:35to provide free adult medical services, pediatric medical services, dental care, optometry, physical therapy, and dermatology
03:44at the Napa in Port of Spain from August 7th to August 9th between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
03:50The U.S. Embassy further said services will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.
03:54No pre-registration is required, and while national identification is not mandatory,
04:00it may be helpful for dispensing medication.
04:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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