Jamaica Mission

April 14^th, 2011

We’re in Jamaica, mon!  We pulled into anchorage (not into dock) yesterday morning and the first crew went ashore yesterday for site setup and patient screening for surgery.  Some of the medical folks went out today, but the clinic doesn’t really open until tomorrow.  I’ll be heading ashore bright and early, by “hospitality boat” and then by bus to the clinic site.  I’m anxious to get started – hoping the time will go by faster once we’re out and about. 

The last few days have been really eye-opening, though, full of preparations and planning activities for not only the Jamaica mission, but the next mission in Peru.  It’s amazing to me the amount of logistical coordination that goes into these missions.  In addition to medical care (which in itself is a huge undertaking – detailing pharmacy formulary, de-worming protocols, and patient flow), the ship has an entire “det” (detachment = section) dedicated to civil and environmental engineering, who will be performing non-medical humanitarian work, from building shelters to fixing plumbing systems to repairing schools.  There is also a group tasked with educating the host nation medical and lay personnel on hand and water hygiene, preventive medicine procedures (vaccines, mosquito nets, etc.), and a variety of “SMEEs” – subject matter expert exchanges.  I’ve been asked to provide several heme/ onc related talks and will hopefully get to meet with some of the local oncologists to see how cancer care is delivered in these less developed countries.  Like I said, eye-opening!

On a different note, I’ve discovered over the last few days some of the frustrations of ship living.  The biggest one by far: laundry.  There are some very strict laundry rules on board ships, apparently.  The ship’s laundry service (which, incidentally, are the same people who staff the mess hall) will wash and dry certain items – uniforms, towels, socks, and underwear.  However, the restrictions placed on how these items are accepted are laughable.  Socks and T-shirts have to go together, separate from towels and underwear.  Whites must be separated from darks (not sure where the “lights” are supposed to go).  Uniforms are to be rolled up and kept separate from the above items.  No civilian clothes will be laundered.  Bags must be secured with a laundry pin (which must be correctly ‘weaved’ through the top of the bag), and must be accompanied by a work slip detailing the contents of each bag.  Name and room number must be written on all uniform items.  Following these rules requires at least 20 minutes to prepare laundry properly, and several different laundry bags, each about ¼ full.  And today, my entire floor’s laundry was “rejected” because all of the laundry bags had drawstrings – which are evidently prohibited.  Truthfully, I wasn’t too concerned, as there are “self service” laundry machines available for use and I had the day wide open to accomplish a mere 2 loads of laundry.  As it turns out, the days on which these machines can be used depends on rank, and there are 10 washers and 8 dryers (for a crew of 900).  Given the restrictions above, there were some people with a LOT of laundry – one person had filled 5 washers at once.  Again, with not a lot to do, I wasn’t particularly bothered, and after a short wait, I got my clothes clean and dry (actually cleaner and drier than when they were done by the ship’s laundry service).  But wow, were some people ticked off!  Note for future deployments: clean clothes are a big morale booster.

Now, I’m told on a real “grey hull” ship, things work a lot differently.  The crew is smaller, and the percentage of officers on board is much smaller as well.  All laundry is taken care of by the ship’s service, and Navy personnel who have been on other ships have told me they’ve never even heard of rejecting a laundry bag.  They’ve also told stories about the officer’s “ward room,” which on the Comfort is a smaller, less crowded, less well-stocked version of the main cafeteria (mess deck), open to ranks O-4 and above.  Apparently on the “grey hulls,” the ward room is open to all officers and is somewhat like a restaurant, where a member of the mess crew takes orders and delivers food and drinks.  Sounds much more luxurious than what we’ve got here, but, oh well.  It could be a lot worse.  Apparently, in the Navy, serving a tour on the Comfort or its sister ship, the Mercy, is a big career-booster.  I have been asked countless times, by my Navy colleagues, “How did you get to come on CP11?”  They are astonished when I tell them this was just another deployment that was assigned to Eglin, and that I was in the band to deploy, and so here I am.  In the Navy, this humanitarian mission, although 5 months long, doesn’t count as an official deployment – so they don’t get any R&R (rest and reconstitution) time when they get back, and they can still get tasked for a “grey hull” deployment at any time.  I knew there was a reason I joined the Air Force!