Political value may overshadow better options, some say
By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 26, 2007 6:08:31 EST
BALTIMORE — The hospital ship Comfort has operating rooms, a dental clinic, intensive care and neonatal care units, some of the most sophisticated medical imaging equipment in the world, and a flight deck that can accommodate the world’s largest helicopters.
On a wall near its quarterdeck are plaques and certificates from foreign governments visited on its recent four-month humanitarian deployment to 12 Caribbean and Latin American countries. On another wall there are pictures of a sailor playing basketball with Colombian children and a foreign man waving an American flag.
Navy medical officers familiar with the deployment say the photos and plaques — and not Comfort’s array of medical equipment — are the reason the ship is still in service, and the reason that Comfort, and not a smaller Navy ship with better logistical capability, was sent on the humanitarian deployment this summer.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/11/navy_comfort_071125w/
