Military Expands Medical Support in New York City, New Orleans and Dallas

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.