Puerto Rico's floating hospital ship could be saving lives but no-one knows how to get to it

A floating hospital could help desperate patients in Puerto Rico, but nobody knows how to get there.

Clinics on the island have been overwhelmed with patients since Hurricane Maria made landfall there, but patients and staff say they’re not sure how to start sending sick people over. The ship, the USNS Comfort, is sitting right off shore with just 13 per cent of its 250 beds in use nearly two weeks after it arrived.

The Comfort was deployed to Puerto Rico as a part of the US federal response to the storm, which devastated the island and left hospitals vulnerable to power outages, limited water supplies, and food shortages.

The Puerto Rico Department of Health gets to decide which patients can get care aboard the Comfort, but referrals have been minimal so far.

Ricardo Rosselló, the governor of the island, told CNN that the issue was not because a lack of infrastructure, or physical means of getting patients to the ship.

“The disconnect or the apparent disconnect was in the communications flow,” Mr Rosselló said. “I asked for a complete revision of that so that we can now start sending more patients over there.”

For doctors and care providers working in clinics and hospitals running on generators, speeding up the process could mean life or death for patients. While the official death toll has creeped up to 48 so far, reports from the island indicate that people have been dying in hospitals as doctors run out of medication or fuel from generators, leaving people who rely on oxygen, or dialysis, at risk.

As of Sunday, 85 per cent of the island still lacked power.

Captain Kevin Robinson, the mission commander aboard the Comfort, told CNN that help is waiting for those in need.

“I know that we have capacity. I know that we have the capacity to help. What the situation on the ground is… that’s not in my lane to make a decision,” Mr Robinson said. “Every time we’ve been tasked by [Puerto Rico’s] medical operation centre to respond or bring a patient on, we have responded.”

The ship has 250 beds, and just 33 of them are in use.