USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) is the third United States Navy ship to bear the name Comfort, and the second Mercy Class Hospital Ship to join the navy fleet. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, USNS Comfort and her crew do not carry any ordnance and firing on the Comfort is considered a war crime.
Like her sister ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19), Comfort was built as an oil tanker in 1976 by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company. Her original name was SS Rose City and she was launched from San Diego, California.
Her career as an oil tanker ended when she was delivered to the Navy on December 1, 1987. Now, as a hospital ship, Comfort's new duties include providing emergency, on-site care for U.S. combatant forces deployed in war or other operations. Operated by the Military Sealift Command, Comfort provides rapid, flexible, and mobile medical and surgical services to support Marine Corps Air/Ground Task Forces deployed ashore, Army and Air Force units deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat. Secondarily, she provides mobile surgical hospital service for use by appropriate US Government agencies in disaster or humanitarian relief or limited humanitarian care incident to these missions or peacetime military operations.
Comfort is kept in a state of reduced operations in Baltimore harbor. She has been used many times over the years and has been ready to ship out of Baltimore with 5 days' notice.
Deployments of the USNS Comfort
Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm
During Operation Desert Storm, Comfort was positioned in close proximity to Kuwait, just off the coast of Saudi Arabia near Khafji. On March 12, 1991, Comfort was under way on her return trip home. She arrived in Baltimore on April 15, 1991. While deployed, Comfort traveled more than 35,000 miles (65,000 km) and consumed almost three million U.S. gallons (11 million liters) of fuel. More than 8,000 outpatients were seen, and 700 inpatients were admitted including four sailors injured in a high-pressure steam leak on USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2). Three hundred thirty-seven surgical procedures were performed. Other notable benchmarks include:more than 2,100 safe helicopter evolutions; 7,000 prescriptions filled; 17,000 laboratory tests completed; 1,600 eyeglasses made; 800,000 meals served and 1,340 radiographic studies, including 141 CT scans.
Operation Sea Signal
Comfort was ordered to activation to serve as migrant processing center for Haitian migrants. During this mission, Comfort served as the first afloat migrant processing center. She set out for the Caribbean with a crew of 928 military and civilian personnel from various federal government and international agencies. On June 16, 1994 the first Haitian migrants were taken aboard. Over the months deployed, the population onboard swelled to 1,100. Shortly after, Comfort was ordered to discontinue processing and sailed for Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba to drop off its remaining 400 migrants.
Operation Uphold Democracy
On September 2, 1994, Comfort was again directed to activate for a second unprecedented deployment. Comfort was tasked to provide a 250 bed medically intensive patient capability for the 35,000 Cuban and Haitian migrants supported by Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Comfort departed Baltimore, with a specially configured crew of 566 personnel. Following the diplomatic agreement reached between the United States and Haiti, Comfort took up a position off Port-Au-Prince ready to receive casualties that might result from the transfer of U.S. and allied forces ashore. From September 16 through October 2, 1994, Comfort personnel provided both medical and surgical support to U.S. and allied forces ashore and afloat, emergency humanitarian care to injured Haitian citizens, and participated in various aspects of the Civil Affairs Program in an effort to aid the rebuilding effort of the local healthcare system. She returned to Baltimore on October 14, 1994.
Operation Noble Eagle
Comfort was activated the afternoon of September 11, 2001, in response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and sailed the next afternoon to serve as a 250-bed hospital facility at Pier 92 in midtown Manhattan. The ship arrived at Pier 92 in Manhattan at about 8:30 p.m. September 14. That evening a small number of relief workers arrived aboard the ship. As word about the ship spread, more workers began arriving over the next few days. The ship’s clinic saw 561 guests for cuts, respiratory ailments, fractures and other minor injuries, and Comfort's team of Navy psychology personnel provided 500 mental health consultations to relief workers. Comfort also hosted a group of volunteer New York area massage therapists who gave 1,359 therapeutic medical massages to ship guests.
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Comfort was ordered to activate on December 26, 2002, and set sail for the U.S. Central Command area of operations on January 6, 2003. After stopping in Diego Garcia to embark additional medical personnel flown in from the National Naval Medical Center, the ship proceeded to the Persian Gulf to serve as an afloat trauma center in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Comfort remained in the Persian Gulf for 56 days providing expert medical care to wounded U.S. military personnel as well as injured Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war. When Comfort returned to Baltimore on June 12, 2003, it marked the completion of a nearly six-month activation. During this time, the ship conducted more than 800 helicopter deck landings to bring aboard personnel, patients and cargo. Comfort's Medical Treatment Facility had also performed 590 surgical procedures, transfused more than 600 units of blood, developed more than 8,000 radiographic images and treated nearly 700 patients including almost 200 Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war.
Joint Task Force Katrina
Comfort deployed on September 2, 2005, after only a 2-day preparation, to assist in Gulf Coast recovery efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Starting in Pascagoula, Mississippi and then sailing to New Orleans, Comfort personnel saw 1,956 patients total. USNS Comfort returned on October 13, 2005 after its 7 week deployment.
2007 humanitarian mission
USNS Comfort’s humanitarian mission, which began in June 15, 2007, was a major component of the president’s “Advancing the Cause of Social Justice in the Western Hemisphere” initiative. Comfort visited 12 Central American, South American and Caribbean nations where its embarked medical crew provided free health care services to communities in need. The mission offered valuable training to U.S. military personnel while promoting U.S. goodwill in the region. In all, the civilian and military medical team treated more than 98,000 patients, provided 386,000 patient encounters and performed 1,100 surgeries.
The embarked medical crew was made up of more than 500 military and Non-Governmental Organization (Project Hope and Operation Smile) doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals. Their primary focus was to support medical humanitarian assistance efforts ashore. A secondary mission was outpatient shipboard health service support.
Also supporting Comfort’s medical mission was a SEABEE detachment from the East Coast-based Mobile Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 202, which performed civic action repair and minor construction projects in the host countries. Also on the deployment was the U.S. Navy Showband from Norfolk, Va, which performed in each port.
Comfort was operated and navigated by a crew of 68 civil service mariners (CIVMARS) from the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC).
This mission incorporated various non-government organizations and government agencies, such as Operation Smile, Project Hope, the Atlanta Rotary Club, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army, U.S. Health and Human Services and the Canadian Defense Force.
A variety of medical conditions and concerns are common to the region. This deployment helped share best-practices for the most effective, economical treatments that can be made available by regional medical teams.
Comfort’s deployment to the region exemplified the U.S. commitment to cooperative partnerships in the region.
A key element of this deployment was the potential for a variety of medical staffs to collectively address regional medical concerns and develop effective, economical solutions that can be used through the region.
This deployment provided another opportunity for U.S. military services to work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) so that strong partnerships are in place and can be called upon in the event of a regional situation that requires cooperative solutions.
Patient encounters include a single patient receiving multiple treatments, students in training sessions and even veterinary care services.
Dentists and staff treated 25,000 patients, extracting 300 teeth, and performing 4,000 fillings, 7,000 sealings, and 20,000 fluoride applications.
In addition to treating patients, bio-medical professionals fixed about a thousand pieces of medical equipment at local health facilities. The ship’s crew also delivered nearly $200,000 dollars worth of donated humanitarian aid.
USNS Comfort awards, citations & campaign ribbons
General characteristics
- Patient Capacity:
- Intensive care wards: 80 beds
- Recovery wards: 20 beds
- Intermediate care wards: 280 beds
- Light care wards: 120 beds
- Limited care wards: 500 beds
- Total Patient Capacity: 1000 beds
- Operating Rooms: 12
- Departments and Facilities:
- Casualty reception
- Radiological services
- Main laboratory plus satellite lab
- Central sterile receiving
- Medical supply/pharmacy
- Physical therapy and burn care
- Dental services
- Optometry/lens lab
- Morgue
- Laundry
- Oxygen producing plants (two)
- Medical Photography
- Four distilling plants to make drinking water from sea water (300,000 gallons per day)
- Flight deck can handle world's largest military helicopters (CH-53D, Mi-17)
