The USNS Hospital Ship Comfort arrived in NYC to Treat Non-COVID-19 Patients

h. nazan ışık—

31 March 2020—

It was an important day yesterday for New York City to fight against novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Yesterday, Monday, 30 March 2020, the US Navy hospital ship Comfort arrived in New York City, and also Javits Center field hospital opened as a medical facility at the Jacob Javits Center to relieve the pressure on hospitals overwhelmed by coronavirus patients.

The US Navy hospital ship Comfort arriving at Pier 90 on West Side Manhattan, with red crosses on its white hull. (h. nazan ışık/NKENdiKEN)

People watching as the USNS Comfort prepares to dock, and tried to take pictures of the ship. (h. nazan ışık /NKENdiKEN)

After the Comfort docked at Pier 90, Mayor de Blasio said: “This ship (the USNS Comfort) arriving is not just an example of help arriving in a physical form. (…) It’s also about hope; it’s also about boosting the morale of New Yorkers who are going through so much,” at a press conference he held at Pier90.

Mayor de Blasio spoke at Pier 90 after the Navy hospital ship Comfort docked. (h. nazan ışık/NKENdiKEN)

And he continued: “We need to triple our hospital bed capacity in New York City by May. (…) The arrival of the Comfort – this is like adding a whole other hospital to New York City. It’s like, think of all the big hospitals in New York City – Bellevue and all the other famous hospitals we think of – it’s like another one of them just floated right up to help us right now. “

The ship is not here to treat COVID-19 patients. She is here, with 1200 medical staff and sailors and 1000 beds, to relieve the pressure on the city’s overcrowding hospital system. “The Intensive Care Units (ICU) in our hospitals used to be a small part of our hospitals that had about 20,000 working hospital beds in New York City. (…) What we have to do is convert (…) almost all of those traditional hospital (like Bellevue, NYU Langone) beds into ICU beds,” Mayor de Blasio said.

Well, now the question is what happens to everyone else who doesn’t need intensive care?

Mayor de Blasio answered: “We have to have hospitals for them too. What happens to people who’ve been infected with Covid-19, but are not at the point where they need intensive care – hopefully on the way to recovery? They need a hospital bed in many cases too, but we can’t put them in an Intensive Care Unit, which has to be reserved for those we’re trying to save.” Mayor Bill de Blasio said that 750 hospital beds on the ship would immediately begin operating. “So what the USNS Comfort allows and Javits Center and so many other places being developed right now, is the ability to take all those other patients and give them care,” he said.

Rear Admiral John Mustin: “Frankly we are prepared to receive and we trust the screening process that is in effect at the Javits Center, so that we will receive advance notice so that the ship can prepare to receive the patients. But, but in terms of what the health care providers determine are the best patients for us, those are the ones that we would expect to receive.”

Another question: Who is going to pay for patients’ medical bills, who were treated on the Comfort?

Mayor de Blasio didn’t know the answer and just guessed: “ Well, I don’t know. Admiral – well, I mean, first of all, insurance is insurance so whoever has insurance, I assume that’s the go to. But Admiral do you know the answer?

Admiral Mustin: “Yes, Sir. When the president declared a national emergency, the implication from the Department of Defense is that we provide this service – and we are not looking to check insurance cards or send any invoices or bills. This is an investment by the government on behalf of the people of America. So, there is no additional cost to the patient.”

That was good news. But I still don’t know if someone feels sick or breaks his/her leg, can that person just go to the US Navy hospital ship Comfort without a referral by a doctor.