Haiti Loses Its U.S. Lifeboat
This story was co-published with The Daily Beast.
The U.S. Navy's vast hospital ship, the Comfort, departed Haiti Wednesday and is due back to its home port of Baltimore this weekend. In the harbor off of Port-au-Prince, its gleaming white topsides accented with red crosses have been a conspicuous symbol of U.S. generosity since the country's devastating earthquake.
But for 11 days before it departed, as some hospitals on the ground in Haiti overflowed with patients, no inpatients with earthquake injuries were treated onboard. Instead, the Comfort's personnel engaged Monday in an "abandon ship drill," and its overhead paging system has recently heralded the visits of a host of dignitaries, including the secretary of the Navy, who came to congratulate the crew.
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