The USNS Comfort hospital navy ship has arrived in T&T, ahead of its week-long series of free medical, dental, veterinary, and biomedical clinics.
The visit is being conducted in partnership with the Ministry of Health, under the US Southern Command’s Humanitarian Assistance Programme.
Non-complex surgeries will be offered to select citizens on board the USNS Comfort, on the recommendation of the Regional Health Authorities.
A Director at the Ministry of Health, Anita Sohan, said the assistance from the USNS vessel will assist in relieving some of the backlog on certain surgeries.
“We’re doing minor surgeries on board the Comfort, which is really exciting. The surgeries themselves, for patients, they are being selected through the Ministry of Health. Cataracts, we’re doing some hernia removal, lumps and bumps removal, pterygium, gall bladder. We’re keeping it simple.”
Senior Defense Official, US Embassy in Port of Spain, Captain Gedion T. Teklegiorgis, said in its sixteenth mission, approximately one thousand USNS Comfort personnel will conduct a three-day walk-in clinic, offering free medical services at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain.
“This is a free service of adult medical, paediatric, optical, dental, physical therapy. This is the most beautiful part of what America can provide.”