page_title: USNS Comfort (T-AH-20)
section_title: Iraq War (2002–03)
hierarchical_section_title: USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) / Deployments / Iraq War (2002–03)
caption_attribution_description: English: New Orleans, October 6, 2005 - The USNS Comfort, a 1,000 bed hospital ship, is now docked in the city and is providing critical medical care to those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Doctors from Louisiana State University are working side-by-side with military personnel to deliver aid to the injured and sick transported to this floating medical facility. Win Henderson / FEMA
context_page_description: USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) is a Mercy-class hospital ship of the United States Navy.
  Comfort's duties include providing emergency, on-site care for U.S. combatant forces deployed in war or other operations. Operated by the Military Sealift Command, Comfort provides rapid, flexible, and mobile medical and surgical services to support Marine Corps Air-Ground Task Forces and Army and Air Force units deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat. Secondarily, she provides mobile surgical hospital service for use by appropriate U.S. government agencies in disaster or humanitarian relief or limited humanitarian care incident to these missions or peacetime military operations. Comfort is more advanced than a field hospital but less capable than a traditional hospital on land.
  From 30 March to 30 April 2020, Comfort was stationed in New York City to help combat the city's coronavirus pandemic by treating non-coronavirus patients. On 6 April the Comfort was allowed to begin accepting patients who had contracted the virus.
context_section_description: USNS Comfort was ordered to activate on 26 December 2002, and set sail for the U.S. Central Command area of operations on 6 January 2003. After stopping in Diego Garcia to embark additional medical personnel flown in from the National Naval Medical Center, the ship proceeded to the Persian Gulf to serve as an afloat trauma center in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Comfort remained in the Persian Gulf for 56 days providing expert medical care to wounded U.S. military personnel as well as injured Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war. When Comfort returned to Baltimore on 12 June 2003, it marked the completion of a nearly six-month activation. During this time, the ship conducted more than 800 helicopter deck landings to bring aboard personnel, patients, and cargo. Comfort's Medical Treatment Facility had also performed 590 surgical procedures, transfused more than 600 units of blood, developed more than 8,000 radiographic images, and treated nearly 700 patients, including almost 200 Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners of war.
caption: USNS Comfort in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
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