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USTRANSCOM surgeon’s office assists in Haiti

  • Published
  • By Bob Fehringer
  • U.S. Transportation Command Public Affairs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  Within hours of the earthquake in Haiti Jan. 12, the U.S. Transportation Command Surgeon's office here began a 24-hour watch.

Though much of the intelligence coming from the region was incomplete, USTRANSCOM workers knew medical and patient movement support would be a huge piece of the recovery efforts in Haiti.

Less than 48 hours after the quake, the command deployed a four-member patient movement situational awareness team to support the U.S. Southern Command Surgeon's Office in Miami, Fla.

This team assisted USSOUTHCOM in identifying urgent aeromedical requirements, helped draft the patient movement contingency operations for the region, trained USSOUTHCOM personnel on the automated system used to support patient movement, and provided medical and aeromedical evacuation planning expertise.

The Contingency Medical Desk was also activated in the Deployment Distribution Operations Center inside of USTRANSCOM to provide 24/7 situational awareness and support for the surgeon and the USTRANSCOM commander.

Several reservists from the Joint Transportation Reserve Unit were activated on special orders to assist in the Surgeon's office, the Deployment Distribution Operations Center, and the Global Patient Movement Requirements Center.

"Reservists are the lifeblood of our ability to respond," said Col. Lawrence Riddles, USTRANSCOM Surgeon General. "They bring an extraordinary amount of capability as well as motivation to help out whoever they can. Their integration is seamless - only time you notice them is when they are absent."

After a requirement was identified for a Joint Patient Reporting Team and an Aeromedical Evacuation Liaison Team to assist at the airfield in Port-au-Prince, USTRANSCOM and Air Mobility Command got to work deploying a four-person and two-person team respectively to Haiti to support patient movement operations.

According to Colonel Riddles, extremely limited opportunities to fly directly into Port-au-Prince required teams to fly into the Dominican Republic and travel via ground convoy to the devastated area. These teams are now setting-up and coordinating the arrival of the Mobile Aeromedical Staging Facility that will be co-located with them.

The members of these teams, along with GPMRC, AMC and the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center, and multiple governmental and non-governmental agencies are all working in concert to facilitate safe, timely and appropriate patient movement in and out of Haiti.

"The medical members of this response, just like the members of every specialty, depend on their service component partners and their commercial partners," Colonel Riddles said. "They are all absolutely critical to get the job done."