US Navy Hospital Ship USNS Comfort Attends To Thousands of Colombian Patients On Humanitarian Stop In Santa Marta

United States Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort is in Santa Marta, Colombia this week giving free medical care to local Colombian patients, including several complex surgeries on the hospital ship, along with primary medical care in Santa Marta’s Coliseo Mayor Polideportivo sports coliseum. The US mission is supported locally by counterparts in the Colombian government including the Colombian military, the Santa Marta mayor’s office, the Colombian ministry of health and the governor’s administration of the Magdalena department. On the mission’s first day, US medics, nurses and doctors attended to hundreds of Colombians. The ship will be in port on this humanitarian mission all week.

Jaqueline Polo and her two-year-old son Juan David will spend two days aboard the USNS Comfort, where Juan David will have surgery to repair a congenital umbilical hernia. Jaqueline thanked those who work in the mission. “They make a sacrifice leaving their homes, their land and their customs, to dedicate themselves to such a beautiful work as helping people like me.”

68 year old Miguel Angel Santana lives in the San Jorge neighborhood of Santa Marta, and is excited about his upcoming operation on the USNS Comfort. He expresses his hopes in the operation procedure for his optical cataracts and said he wants to “Be able to see again how God originally gave me sight. To see clearly. ”

The mission expects to serve thousands of patients throughout the week. This humanitarian mission reflects the close and continuous cooperation between the governments of Colombia and the United States.