The US Navy is here in Belize on a humanitarian mission. It's called the Continuing Promise mission 2015 and over 1,000 crew members arrived this morning on the U.S Naval Hospital ship - USNS COMFORT. 2 Navy helicopters brought over 100 pallets of medical supplies and sporting equipment to be distributed across the country. Today we met with the Mission Commander, Captain Sam Hancock and he told us how this visit will significantly enhance services provided to Belizeans and further build ties between the US and Belize.
Captain Sam Hancock, Mission Commander, Continuing Promise
"We have quite a large amount, this is just the beginning of the supplies that'll be coming in but there's medical supplies that will utilize at the medical sites. There is engineering supplies for the building sites where we will be doing some fairly small engineering projects and then there is also a lot of donated goods that came with our NGO partners that some are home-based in Belize that we've also brought their teams on board. There's a number of donations, things from hospital equipment, beds, formularies and all types of things that 
we'll be bringing ashore. So a lot of the gear, actual medical gear that we'll use at the sites, as well as the supplies and then all the supplies that are remaining after the mission is stopped, we will turn over to the Ministry of Health for continue use here in the country. It's a main stay for our mission to come down here and with the use of the hospital ship, where in some cases we may come down without the hospital ship but the military civil humanitarian assistance is the overall mission of it - It's a critical piece in building the continuing partnerships between Belize and the United States. This mission is one of many that we conduct together, but I think it already has some of the biggest impact without a doubt."
Brig. Gen. David Jones, Commander - Belize Defence Force
"We stand to benefit greatly at least for the next 10 days, where they'll be providing medical support from small medical treatments up to surgeries will be provided to Belizeans free of cost. They'll be mainly based in Placencia, in the south and then they'll branch off to some of the villages as well and also in Hattieville they'll have a main base. So they'll cover the southern part and central part where people can come in and get medical screening, get medical tested and get treatment as well. Apart from that the Belize Defence Force in working with 
them closely where we'll provide transportation as well as security for some of the things that are coming in. This one that is here, we haven't seen this for a long time. We've had smaller missions similar to this but not on this scale. This is a pretty large scale because we expect at least about ten thousand Belizeans should be treated on this trip free of cost and apart from that we have the kids from the schools that will benefit from the sporting equipment and also schoolbags. We've had them in the past but not at this scale, but this is the on-going relationship that have been fostering with the US military and with other military's to come to Belize to partner with us and then provide good things for the citizens of Belize."
Email
Print