Within days, military field hospitals will set up operations in Seattle and New York City – two of the areas hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic – to help take some of the pressure off local medical facilities.
Several other base hospitals and medical facilities across all the military services have been placed on “Prepare to Deploy” orders to help out. The Department of Defense will supply the medical personnel and equipment.
“My aim is to get the (field hospitals) out this week,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon.
He said Seattle and New York City seem to be the most likely spots to send the military field hospitals but ultimately, the decision is up to FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We just need FEMA to validate that,” Mr. Esper said.
The field hospitals are separate from the Navy hospital ships – UNSN Comfort and USNS Mercy – now being readied to care for non-COVID 19 patients in New York City and Los Angeles, Mr. Esper said.
On Wednesday, the UNSN Mercy will be departing from Naval Base San Diego for Los Angeles with more than 800 Navy medical personnel aboard along with a crew of civil service mariners. The ship will serve as a referral hospital for non-COVID 19 patients.
“This will allow local health professionals to focus on treating COVID-19 patients and for shore-based hospitals to use their intensive care units and ventilators for those patients,” Navy officials said in a statement.
FEMA chose Los Angeles over Seattle as the destination for the hospital ship because hospital bed space was more critical there, officials said.
