Director General of Sri Lanka Army Health Service visits USNS MERCY at Trinco

Director General Army Health Services (DGAHS) and a team of Sri Lanka Army doctors recently visited the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19), the largest floating hospital ship in the world docked at Trincomalee harbour under the Pacific Partnership Programme - 2018.

Visiting delegates were guided through the 1000 bed US Naval hospital ship with 12 operating rooms, fully equipped emergency room and intensive care unit, digital radiological services, state-of-the-art medical laboratory and the blood bank.

DGAHS on board held bilateral medical talks with lead of global surgery of Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Walter Reed National Military Medical centre of USA, Commander, Tamara Worlton and with Commanding Officer, Captain Peter F.Roberts, MC, USN.

The hospital ship, USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) will lead a multinational force including military and civilian medical providers and crisis-responders to the Indo-Asia-Pacific region for Pacific Partnership 2018 during visits to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan and Sri Lanka.

The hospital ship will embark some 800 military and civilian personnel from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Peru and Japan, and will be joined by expeditionary fast support transport ship USNS Fall River (T-EPF-4) in 7th Fleet.

This year’s Pacific Partnership marks the 13th year of the multinational mission that was prompted by the massive destruction following a 2004 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia regions. With a heavy focus on humanitarian assistance and disaster response, the annual multilateral missions are seen as building and strengthening relationships with both allies and fledgling partners in a vast, global region regularly affected by natural disasters and civil unrest.

Mercy is slated to support disaster response and preparedness missions in visits to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Vietnam before stopping in Japan ahead of its eventual return to San Diego. This is the second year that Sri Lanka will participate in the Pacific Partnership mission.

Medical, dental, civil-engineering and veterinary teams will work with local host forces in a variety of civic-action projects, community health exchanges, medical symposiums and disaster response training activities, along with community-relations projects, according to officials.