How the Navy shows ‘mercy’

April 30, 2012-SAN DIEGO, CA| The Navy hospital ship, USNS Mercy, is preparing to leave Naval Base San Diego on Tuesday, on the first leg of Pacific Partnership 2012, the largest annual humanitarian and civic mission that will take it to the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia and provide medical, dental, veterinary, and civil engineering assistance during the four-and-a-half month deployment. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

San Diego floating hospital departs on Pacific goodwill mission

April 30, 2012
Written by Jeanette Steele
U-T San Diego

One operation stands out in the mind of Dr. Matthew Provencher, a Navy orthopedic surgeon. A young Cambodian man who loved soccer had a crooked leg from an accident — too crooked to play or coach soccer anymore.

The man came aboard the Mercy in 2010, the last time the San Diego-based Navy hospital ship sailed the Pacific on its every-other-year goodwill medical mission. Provencher performed surgery in the Mercy’s cavernous operating room, inserting a rod to straighten the man’s calf bone.

“We’re looking for the cases that will have very high impact, will help patients do things better, live longer and have a better life,” the Navy doctor said.

The Mercy sails again at 10 a.m. Tuesday for its 2012 Pacific Partnership mission. The converted oil tanker — one of two hospital vessels in the U.S. Navy — will make stops in Hawaii and Guam to pick up supplies and people before visiting Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia.

There, Navy medical staff will operate on cataracts, fix hernias, insert ear tubes and set bones aboard ship. On land, the crew will give physical exams, teach first aid and nutrition and swap knowledge with local doctors.

Last time around, Provencher said, he learned intriguing things about using bamboo to splint limbs.

“Sometimes it’s an island of 40,000 people that we pull up to, and drop anchor, and there’s one surgeon there and that surgeon does everything,” said the Navy doctor, who is returning to the ship as director of surgery.

As the U.S. Defense Department turns its attention to the Pacific this year, in response to the rise of China, this mission — the largest regular humanitarian effort in the region — parallels the United States’ military interests.

The Mercy’s 1,000-person population will include 400 Navy medical personnel and 70 civilian mariners who drive the ship. Civilians from U.S. nongovernmental organization, such as the UC San Diego Pre-Dental Society, and foreign charities will fill out the roster.

This year’s $20 million medical mission has its roots in the late 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia. In January 2005, the Mercy was dispatched to provide aid to the region.

In 2006, the Navy began using Mercy for what became a regular four- to five-month mission to the Pacific islands on even years.

On odd years, the Baltimore, Md.-based hospital ship Comfort has deployed to the Caribbean or Latin America on goodwill trips. In 2011, the San Diego-based amphibious ship Cleveland accompanied the Comfort.

Aside from goodwill missions, the Navy’s floating hospitals have been used to care for injured during the Iraq War in 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The Navy hospital ships are nearly as big as aircraft carriers, measuring 894 feet long. The two former tankers were gutted at San Diego’s NASSCO shipyard in the 1980s and relaunched as hospital vessels in 1986.

The Mercy houses operating rooms, intensive care units and rows and rows of hospital beds. It offers four X-ray machines, a CT scanner, a dental suite, optometry lab, physical therapy center and pharmacy. The crew can handle up to 5,000 units of blood.

The hulking white ships, marked prominently with red hospital crosses, have not always been respected as vessels of goodwill.

In 2008, the Navy halted flights to and from the Mercy after one of its two helicopters took gunfire while in the Philippines. No one was injured.

The nations visited change from year to year. In 2010, the Mercy stopped at Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Palau, in addition to Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Other Pacific countries, such as Australia and Japan, also lend resources.

The host nations have invited the U.S. Navy to help, and local doctors will screen patients for treatment before the Mercy arrives. In recent years, some foreign doctors have come aboard the ship to conduct procedures.

Establishing these partnerships now may lead to faster reaction after the next earthquake or flood, Navy officials said. The mission’s motto is “preparing in calm to respond in crisis.”

Only certain kinds of operations will work in the two weeks the ship is scheduled to stay in each nation. No open-heart surgeries, for instance. Navy doctors want patients to be fairly well recovered before they leave the ship and to be able to get the same care at home.

Still, the patients come.

One Pacific Partnership veteran said maybe 1,000 patients once stood waiting when she arrived from the ship in the small white launches that Mercy sailors have dubbed “band-aid boats.”

Capt. Mary Anne Yonk is the Mercy’s director of nursing. She has deployed twice on the aircraft carrier Nimitz and was on the ground with the Marines during the 1991 Gulf War.

Yonk is telling her nurses to be ready for action, not a cushy cruise.

“This is a chance to do professional nursing in an environment that they’ll never get an opportunity to do here in the States,” she said. “It’s going to be a great ride.”

The Mercy is scheduled to return to San Diego in mid September.