Bogota, Columbia….The first phase of the USNS Comfort hospital ship mission in Turbo finished yesterday after assisting 5,450 patients and performing 131 surgeries. The mission will continue in Riohacha as of November 26. In the five days of the mission in Turbo, USNS Comfort staff and their allies attended a total of 5,450 patients and performed 131 surgeries. The Hospital Comfort Ship is now heading to Riohacha where it will pay attention during the days November 26 to 30, once it finishes its mission in Colombia it will depart to Honduras.

The closing ceremony was attended by Captain William Shafley and Captain Kevin Buckley of the hospital ship Comfort; Col. Alex Ramirez Commander of Task Force Against Drug Trafficking # 73 Neptune; and representatives of the municipalities of Turbo, Apartado, Necoclí and Mutatá.

In the words of 5-year-old patient Shirley Madrigal, seen on the ship for a revision of a scar on her upper lip, medical attention “surprised me”. The marine nurse Brian Matthews, was in charge of accompanying the girl and her relative while she received medical attention.

It should be noted that the ship that arrived on November 14 to Turbo, also had the mission staff, with volunteers from the United States, Argentina, and other nationalities. Among the Colombian volunteers, the mission had the support of more than 45 students of the last degrees of medicine from Colombian universities who helped as translators during the medical treatments.

With these positive results, the mission in Turbo closes its first phase and thus extends a special recognition to different entities such as the Government of Colombia, Ministry of Defense, and Ministry of Health; AmCham Medellín; UNHCR; and the Colombian National University of Colombia, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the Andes, El Rosario, La Sabana and La Salle, without whom it would not have been possible to succeed in these first days of the mission in Colombia.