MIAMI (AP) — A dozen Venezuelan doctors volunteered to join the USNS Comfort as the Navy hospital ship visits three South American countries that are struggling to cope with a flood of migrants from crisis-wracked Venezuela.

The doctors all live in the United States, but they wanted to help fellow Venezuelans who have fled widespread shortages of food and medicine amid an economic collapse that has pushed millions of people into poverty.

"This is like a Band-Aid" that will provide only temporary relief, said Dr. Marco Bologna, a cardiologist who now lives in Florida, where he is a member of th...