© 2024 WLRN
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Rare Calm In Haiti As Thousands Seek Free Medical Care From U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Comfort

Kisley Jeannot
/
COURTESY OF US EMBASSY HAITI
A dentist from Mexico treats a Haitian patient aboard the USNS Comfort naval hospital ship Thursday in Haiti. The ship arrived on Monday and will remain in the country until Wednesday.

One man needed a hernia operation that he could not afford. A young girl came to seek help for her 3-year-old cousin whose skin was inexplicably covered with sores. And a mother of four needed help with a chronic allergy reaction.

They all took the chance to travel miles away from home to the Haitian Coast Guard base Killick on Thursday in search of medical care from the U.S. Navy ship Comfort, the floating U.S. naval hospital that arrived Monday. It was a rare calm following two months of sustained protests, burning tires and impassable barricades.

“I already feel better”’ Jean Seide, 47, said as he lay in a bed waiting to be wheeled into the operating room aboard the ship to treat a large hernia that he said has plagued him for years.

Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.

More On This Topic