“Every year on July 19 we have a nine day festival for the founding of the hospital in 1916,” said Teresita Berenguer, the EVRMC chief nurse. “This is the 6th day of our activities and everything has been great so far.”

This year’s celebration was the hospital’s biggest and the first since Typhoon Yolanda. Included in the celebration was a performance by the Navy’s Pacific Fleet Band, a dance competition and special events for the staff involved.

“The hospital was very excited to be able to have the band play at the event,” said Capt. John Parrish. “We are all very honored to be involved in this special celebration. Several Sailors and Soldiers off of our mission participated in the early 12k run in the morning hosted by the hospital.”

Throughout the week before the anniversary celebration, the PP14 medical staff worked at the hospital conducting symposiums on a variety of topics such as internal medicine, infectious diseases and cancer pain management and more.

“Our medical team has been here all week doing symposiums as well as subject matter exchanges,” said Parrish. “We have been mentoring and working side-by-side with the staff at this hospital so they are very excited to have us at the celebration.”

The celebration ends July 16th and it will be the last until the EVRMC medical staff move into their new location.

“The Navy has been here hands-on helping us all throughout this week,” said Fe Cuanton, the EVRMC assistant chief nurse. “We are very thankful for their presence. They are so eager to help us. Thank you so much.”

Pacific Partnership is in its ninth iteration and is the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission conducted in the Asia-Pacific region.