Belizeans benefit from visiting floating hospital
For the next five days, Belizeans will be the beneficiaries of the medical expertise of United States Naval officers who are currently touring the region. As News Five’s Jacqueline Godwin and Chris Mangar found out this morning, while some patients will be treated on land, others will be airlifted to a floating hospital.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Today eight year old Shanieya Johnson and thirteen year old Raheem Reid were two of the more than one hundred Belizeans who benefited from the presence of visiting medical personnel from the United States. While the children and their mother were there to have doctors remedy eyesight problems, the highlight of the day was the helicopter ride out to the U.S. Military Sealift Command Hospital Ship, the Comfort.
The operations to Shanieya and Raheem took place on board the Comfort, but first they had to be screened by doctors at the Belize Defence Force Hospital at Price Barracks in Ladyville.
Jacqueline Godwin
“What is it you want the doctors to do for you?”
Shanieya Johnson, Eye Patient
“I want the doctor open my eye a lee bit more and make me put on a glasses.”
According to Earlene Johnson, her daughter has had vision problems since birth and while she knows that maybe nothing can be done to correct Shanieya’s left eye, she is hoping for the best.
Earlene Johnson, Mother
“From when she was about three she took an operation already at Corozal Medical Centre, some doctor came in from the States. So I was hoping that maybe some sort of luck can come about now, even if it’s just the glasses it’s okay.”
Shanieya’s condition has affected her participation at school, but her teachers have helped her in the classroom especially in terms of seeing the blackboard.
Shanieya Johnson
“When my teacher put me dah the end of the seat, I ask ah, miss I could goh dah front and then after that she put me way dah front ah the seat mek I see the blackboard.”
As for young Raheem, he is hoping the doctors will be able to remove a growth on his right eye.
According to the site leader, Captain Linda Brown-Vidal, she and her crew are on a four month deployment designed to train U.S personnel on how to provide humanitarian assistance. While at sea, the medics also expect to treat around eighty-five thousand patients in a dozen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Capt. Linda Brown-Vidal, Site Leader
“For a lot of people, this is their first time ever on the hospital ship, so you have to train, how do you work on a ship, how do you get patients from the land to the ship, once you get the on the ship, how do you move them through surgery to recovery to the I.C.U. to the ward et cetera. So that’s the training part of it.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“It’s a whole new experience for them.”
Capt. Linda Brown-Vidal
“It’s a whole new experience, yeah.”
The medical team will be in the country for six days treating a variety of cases at sea and on land.
Capt. Linda Brown-Vidal
“We have been seeing a lot of dental patients, we’ve done a lot of extractions, fillings of cavities, and luckily for some of the children we’ve been able to put the sealant on them to prevent cavities in the future. But we have been seeing adult medicine, we’ve seen paediatrics, optometry, we’re able to prescribe glasses and if we don’t have glasses available we are able to make them onsite and give them to them before they walk out.”
And judging from the way both Shanieya and Raheem were comforted today, it should be a pleasant experience for all the patients. Jacqueline Godwin for News Five.
Today similar medical teams also conducted clinics in Valley of Peace in the Cayo District where an estimated five hundred patients were treated. Dental clinics were also held in
the Orange Walk District. Belize is the first stop on the Comfort’s regional tour.
