The Hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort visited Costa Rica to provide 10 days of medical, dental, veterinary and engineering services in the country. It is part of the Military Sealift Command’s Continuing Promise 2011 Mission. The photo to the left shows the U.S.N.S. Comfort docked next to a cruise ship in Puntarenas. There are more than 800 personnel, both naval and civilians, working on the ship.

On March 17 the USNS Comfort left its home port in Baltimore, Maryland, to visit nine Latin American countries for humanitarian projects and civil engineering. Costa Rica was the eighth of nine stops for this year’s humanitarian mission. The other countries included in the 2011 mission were Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Peru.

The Community Action Alliance was proud to be a small part of the effort. We contacted the U.S. Embassy to see if we could assist with the medical clinics being staged in the Puntarenas area as part of the Continuing Promise mission. The Community Action Alliance provided bi-lingual volunteers to translate for Spanish-speaking patients and physicians and to help in any other areas, as needed. The Embassy secured most of their volunteers from their staff, the Peace Corp. and local medical schools.

This was an amazing operation to observe. It was extremely well organized, with the staging area (a gymnasium) separated by type of service to be provided (Pediatrics, Family Care, Orthodontics, Women’s Care, and much more!) The primary focus of this humanitarian effort is to provide a range of health care services ashore.  However, on a case-by-case basis, patients who need more extensive care, including surgeries, will receive medical or dental care on the ship.There were hundreds of locals who were treated during the day including some who had slept at the site overnight who had been issued numbers to receive care the following day. Different branches of U.S. military services were involved including Coast Guard personnel from as far away as Kodiak, Alaska.

For all of our volunteers, it was a very rewarding experience! A big thank you goes out to them: Maria Fejervary, Scott & Linda McAnally, Adrian Orozco, and Paul Yeatman. Following are some additional photos from the day of Community Action Alliance volunteers who participated in Continuing Promise: