MERCEX 25-1 Concludes

Story by Seaman Justin Ontiveros

USNS MERCY (T-AH 19)

The hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) concluded the quarterly Mercy Exercise (MERCEX) 25-1, Dec. 11th.

During the pier-side exercise, the Mercy crew, which consisted of more than 500 embarked Sailors, conducted an assortment of exercises, trainings, and drills.

“The Mercy hospital ship platform is Navy Medicine’s largest maritime medical force platform,” said Capt. Darla Dietrich, Mercy’s Executive Officer. “Mercy exercises such as this one gives medical personnel the ability to man together as a unit, train as a team, and evaluate our ship’s MTF capabilities to render patient care to our military’s war fighters. This is a key component in achieving Navy Medicine’s North Star.”

Mercy’s crew honed their skills with abandon ship drills, flight deck firefighting drills, mass casualties trainings and other drills to prepare the ship in case of a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) situation or other engagements as the mission requires.

“During MERCEX we conducted multiple drills, individually in departments and as an entire MTF team,” said Dietrich. “We started the week with small scoped drills and increased scope and scenarios throughout the evolution to challenge the command to greater heights of readiness. The finale mass casualty was our evaluation drill of the week’s training evolutions.”

Sailors assigned to Mercy utilize MERCEX to train in their specific roles within the shipboard MTF environment.

“These Sailors familiarize themselves with our equipment, our Standard Operating Procedures, and overall orientation of our ship,” said Dietrich. “This exercise allows them to build their confidence in response to casualty care scenarios as an individual and as a team.”

When called upon, the Mercy is expected to deploy within five days to provide scalable role three medical and surgical care across a broad range of specialties. Mercy does so while serving as an afloat theater hospitalization capability, all in support of the joint warfighter engaged in the full range of military operations.

“Mercy’s primary mission is to provide health services in support of combatant command missions,” said Dietrich. “While in a Reduced Operating Status, we are expected to activate to Full Operating Status within five days of an activation order. MERCEX enables us to bring together our full complement of Medical Treatment Facility personnel for drills and evaluation so we are ready for the fight. By training, we are optimizing our response to save lives in a real world scenario.”

MERCEX keeps both the MSC merchant mariners and service members up to par on their skills and keeps them ready to deploy in a moment’s call to anywhere in the world.

Mercy is currently operating pier side in San Diego for Mercy Exercise 25-1. Mercy is one of two hospital ships owned and operated by Military Sealift Command. Mercy conducts operations in the Pacific area of responsibility under the guidance of U.S. Pacific Command and Commander Pacific Fleet. (U.S. Navy story by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Justin Ontiveros)