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This week, the U.S. Embassy in Bogota tweeted a photo showing a woman who received an inguinal hernia operation aboard the Comfort.

\"There are needy people, we really don't have possibilities to get the treatments or exams that they have done for us,\" the woman said, according to the tweet.

The Comfort is scheduled to arrive at its second-to-last stop, Riohacha, Colombia, on Friday.

\"PHOTO:
Scott Bigley/Navy
PHOTO: The hospital ship USNS Comfort anchors off the coast of Colombia on an 11-week medical support mission to Central and South America as part of U.S. Southern Command's Enduring Promise initiative.
>

Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that the U.S. would deploy the hospital ship after a visit to Colombia in August in which he met with President Ivan Duque, who requested assistance to relieve stress on his nation's healthcare system.

Mattis said at the time the ship was an effort to deal with Maduro's \"increasingly isolated regime.\"

The U.S. has provided nearly $97 million for Venezuelan refugees since October of 2016, according to the State Department, but that money is directed to countries accepting the refugees, not to Venezuela itself, where Maduro doesn't allow it.

United States Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green has said the U.S. stands ready to offer humanitarian assistance Venezuela if Maduro would allow access.

ABC News' Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

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