The Navy’s West Coast hospital ship, the USNS Mercy, left Naval Base San Diego Monday afternoon, March 23, and will wander 125 miles up the coast to the Port of Los Angeles in support of the nation’s COVID-1 9 response campaigns, the representatives from the Navy’s 3rd Fleet announced.
The 1,000 -bed ship will be staffed with 800 Navy medical personnel and more than 70 civil service sailors. Initial plans to deploy it to Washington state were altered as the need for help in the highly populated area of Los Angeles increased, Navy officials said.
” This global crisis demands the whole of government response, and we are ready to support, ” said Capt. John Rotruck, Mercy’s Military Treatment Facility commanding officer. “Mercy wreaks a squad of medical professionals, medical equipment and supplies, all of which will behave, in essence, as a’ relief valve’ for neighbourhood civilian hospices in Los Angeles so that neighbourhood health professionals can better focus on COVID-1 9 bags. We will be implemented by our agility and responsiveness as an afloat Medical Treatment Facility to do what the country asks, and provide relief where we are needed most.”
The ship will serve as a referral hospital for non-COVID-1 9 cases currently admitted to shore-based hospices and will be supported a full range of medical care including critical and urgent care for adults. This will permit neighbourhood health professionals is concentrated in plowing COVID-1 9 patients and for shore-based infirmaries to use their Intensive Care Units and ventilators for those patients.
The floating hospices are designed to specialize in trauma clients, given their mission is to treat wounded troops, and have no way of isolating infectious patients; that’s why they will deploy to support only non-COVID-1 9 cases.
” We can provide their capacity to fill in the gap ,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday, March 23, during remarks he made from the White House.
The civil service sailors are operational and navigate the ship, load and off-load cargo, is to help fixings and add essential services to keep the medical equipment running. When the ship is at port in San Diego its staff often are sent to work abroad and were called back to the Mercy for this mission.
The Navy’s response comes a epoch after President Donald Trump announced on Sunday, March 22, that the Mercy would foreman to Los Angles. It likewise follows part of its efforts by Janice Hahn, Fourth District supervisor in Los Angeles County, who transmit a letter to Trump on March 20, advising him to guide the Navy ship to Los Angeles.
On Monday, Hahn reacted to the news, tweeting:” Right now, about 90% of our ICU beds are occupied by people who do not have COVID-1 9. That entails just about 200 ICU bottoms are available. The Mercy will make the pressure off of our hospital plan so that our hospitals can actually handle the coming COVID-1 9 patients. When it docks, the Mercy will become the largest hospital in LA County.The Mercy will take the pressure off of our hospital organization so that our infirmaries can actually handle the coming COVID-1 9 cases .”
Typically, the Mercy’s primary mission is to offer a floating, portable, acute surgical medical equipment to the U.S. military that is adaptable to support expeditionary war. The ship’s secondary mission is to offer full infirmary services to support U.S. disaster relief and humanitarian operations worldwide.
The ship is the first of two Navy hospital ships worldwide. She was converted from a San Clemente-class supertanker and went into service in 1986.
Read more: ocregister.com.