General Information: Medical staff embarked USS Pearl Harbor (PHB) in
support of Pacific Partnership 2013 humanitarian civic assistance mission
14 May-16 August 2013. Mission stops included Western Samoa 31 May10 June, Kingdom of Tonga 12-22 June, Republic of the Marshall Islands
03-13 July, Kiribati 15-26 July, and Solomon Islands 29 July-07 August.
Additional mission support included New Zealand leading activities in
Kiribati and HMNZS Canterbury in Solomon Islands 29 July-13 August,
as well as Australia leading activities and HMAS Tobruk in Papua New
Guinea 15-26 July.
Activities included community health education (CHE), professional health
conferences, subject matter expert exchanges (SMEE), veterinary
engagements (de-sexing clinics, food safety, animal husbandry, CHE,
SMEE), preventive medicine/public health engagements (water/sanitation,
environmental/occupational health, food safety), and biomedical repair.
Medical staff included personnel from the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy;
Partner Nations (PNs) Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Japan,
Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand; and, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) Latter Day Saints, Project Hope, UCSD Pre-Dental
Society, Vets Without Borders, and World Vets International.
Of the 5 mission objectives, 2 included language specific to medical tasks.
(1) Improvement in Host Nation (HN) ability to provide health care (HC) to the
public in order to sustain health security capacity.
(a) Conduct health engagement activities including medical, dental, and
veterinary services, community health outreach, and preventive medicine
activities appropriate to HN needs as requested at specific locations.
(b) Conduct SMEE at specified locations that are appropriate to HN
needs as requested.
(c) Engage with health professional leaders at all levels to improve the
delivery of HC services.
(2) Improve ability to respond to an all hazard event.
(a) Conduct medical Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR)
activities as appropriate for the local community.
(b) Conduct HA/DR SMEE within the HN as applicable to HN DR plan.
Discussion.
Samoa
The first mission stop had the most complex schedule of events (SOE) and
required staffing of activities on a remote second island, both presenting
significant challenges. We had the advantage of being pier-side, alleviating
dependence of the utility landing craft (LCU) operations for ship to shore transport. Approximately half of the medical staff traveled 3-4 hours from the port in
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