April 3, 2020
At the request of FEMA, the Department of Defense will
expand its medical support to include COVID-19 positive patients at the Javits
Federal Medical Station (FMS) in New York City, the Morial FMS in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and the Kay Bailey Hutchinson FMS in Dallas, Texas.
These three DoD-supported locations will now provide support
to COVID-19 positive patients in convalescent care, as well as low-acuity
patients. These patients, who require a lower level of medical care, must first
be screened at a local hospital.
Additionally, screening for care on the USNS Comfort will be
modified and will now occur pier-side in an effort to reduce the backlog at
some of the nearby New York hospitals.
The screening effort for the USNS Comfort will no longer require a
negative test, but each patient will still be screened by temperature and a
short questionnaire.
This assistance will further unburden the local hospital and
ambulance systems in these areas, allowing them to focus on the more serious
COVID-19 cases. We will immediately implement this action and work with local
officials in each area on the details of patient arrival.
We understand that introducing COVID-19 positive patients
into the FMS environments elevates the risk of transmission to other patients
and our medical providers. This decision
was risk-informed and made to ensure that DoD can continue to provide these
local communities the type of medical care they most need. Force health protection is a top priority and
our medical professionals will have the required personal protective equipment
needed for this mission.
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