A U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Was Sent to Puerto Rico - Its Barely Been Used

[question everything]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—After Hurricane Maria ravaged this island, leaving most hospitals here without reliable power, the U.S. Navy sent a massive floating hospital to help fill gaps in the fragile health-care system.

Hardly anyone has used it.

The USNS Comfort, a 70,000-metric-ton ship staffed with roughly 800 medical and support personnel and 250 beds, has treated only about 150 people since it arrived on Oct. 3, said a U.S. Navy spokesman aboard the vessel. It costs about $180,000 daily to operate the ship, according to the Navy.

(snip)

Government officials say Puerto Rican hospitals are aware the Comfort is ready to take in critical patients. But if Dr. Felix Valle-Avilés is an example, few know about it. Dr. Valle-Avilés, who works at a community health center and a walk-in clinic in Arecibo on the island’s northwest, said he hadn’t received information about the ship or how it can be used.

(snip)

The DoD also stationed personnel outside of hospitals around the island with satellite phones to relay information about hospitals’ power, water and patient count, in case there was need to evacuate or transfer patients, said a U.S. official. Four U.S. Army crews were recently certified to land on the ship during daytime, increasing the ability to transfer patients, said a Navy spokesman.

Still, U.S. emergency officials say the ship has been a valuable backup for the island’s nearly 70 hospitals, about a third of which are reliant on generators that offer spotty power. The ship houses surgeons, pediatricians, an obstetrician, X-ray machines, a pharmacy and even a dental suite.

(snip)

As it has moved along Puerto Rico’s north coast, the ship has also supplied hospitals with more than 10 tons of food and water, plus 29,100 liters of oxygen. The island’s oxygen-producing plants were badly damaged in the storm, leaving many patients scrambling.

(snip)

On Oct. 17, the Puerto Rico Department of Health tweeted out a picture of the Comfort, along with a hotline patients can call for information about health services, including the hospital ship. The hotline was meant to answer health-related questions and alert patients that Comfort wasn’t an outpatient facility, according to Carlos Gomez, who oversees the emergency room at Centro Medico. The ship is meant for the critically ill, he said.

With less than half of cellphone towers working, communication remains a problem for parts of the island. Local officials have also tried to get the word out about the ship through more “rudimentary and primitive” methods, including radio and word-of-mouth, Dr. Gomez said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-a-u-s-navy-hospital-ship-in-puerto-rico-has-hardly-been-used-1508433604

[RainCaster]

1. Thank you FEMA

[nitpicker]

2. A link to the full story

http://us.pressfrom.com/news/us/-93056-why-a-u-s-navy-hospital-ship-in-puerto-rico-has-hardly-been-used/

(snip)
Government officials say Puerto Rican hospitals are aware the Comfort is ready to take in critical patients. But if Dr. Felix Valle-Avilés is an example, few know about it. Dr. Valle-Avilés, who works at a community health center and a walk-in clinic in Arecibo on the island’s northwest, said he hadn’t received information about the ship or how it can be used.

Patients who show up at the Comfort aren’t turned away. But the normal path is through San Juan’s Centro Medico hospital, where doctors evaluate requests for transfer from other hospitals, contact a medical-operation center which in turn dials the ship. Patients are flown to the vessel via helicopter from other hospitals.

To slice through some bureaucracy, officials recently changed the protocol to allow regional hospitals to contact the operation center directly, said U.S. Army Colonel Jose Garcia, who oversees medical coordination for the U.S. Department of Defense’s relief efforts. Patient numbers have gradually climbed in recent days.
(snip)

[nitpicker]

3. My two theories why San Juan had been controlling evacs to the Comfort

1. Twenty-nine days after Maria hit, those generators running throughout the period have accumulated about 700 hours run time. Many of the generators were reported to have a maximum run life of 500 hours. This implies, per Caterpillar,

s7d2.scene7.com/is/content/Caterpillar/C10282446

"A Standby generator set can run for a maximum of 500 hours per year"

that the generators in many hospitals were not intended to provide continuous unlimited power, but instead were backups. The authorities may have feared that more hospital generators would fail, therefore the restriction on most patients to be treated by Comfort to free up space for critical patient transfers.

OR
2. Face/machismo. "WE can do the hospital care job". ((And by the way, generate revenue for the hospital and themselves.))
(pun Was not intentional...))

[question everything]

4. And St. John in the U.S. Virgina Island still has no power

at all

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/us/st-john-without-power-since-irma-trnd/index.html