Posted on 05/13/2005 6:15:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon wants to close the Army's century-old hospital at Walter Reed Medical Center, the world-renowned facility in the nation's capital that has treated presidents and foreign leaders as well as soldiers and veterans.
The proposal is part of a broad reordering of the military's system for medical education, research and care, which the Pentagon says suffers from a mismatch of needs and resources.
Inpatient services would be curtailed at some military bases, and some facilities would be consolidated. Under the plan, the shuttering of Walter Reed would involve moving some of its staff and services to an expanded health care facility on the campus of the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md. The new facility would retain the Walter Reed name, officials said.
"It will rival Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and the other great medical institutions of the world," Lt. Gen. George Taylor, the Air Force surgeon general, told a Pentagon news conference, referring to the new Walter Reed.
The plan is contained in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's recommendations for base closings and realignments, which he submitted Friday to an independent base closing commission and to Congress. Pentagon officials said they expect some elements of the medical proposals to stir controversy, particularly the closure of Walter Reed, the most famous military hospital.
Dr. William Winkenwerder, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said Rumsfeld wants to use the base consolidation - the military's first since 1995 - as an opportunity to gain efficiencies in the medical care system and better position it for the 21st century.
"It is a plan that allows us to invest in and modernize key flagship facilities," he said in an interview.
After spending an estimated $2.4 billion to make these changes over the coming six years, the Pentagon projects that it would then yield a net savings of $400 million a year thereafter.
Walter Reed hospital first opened in 1909 and has treated presidents, members of Congress and foreign leaders, in addition to members of the armed forces and veterans. Today it admits about 16,000 patients a year. They include hundreds of the more seriously wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The far larger Navy hospital at Bethesda opened in 1942.
Research at Walter Reed's satellite Forest Glen facility at Silver Spring, Md., will be expanded.
Among other proposed changes:
_ Build a new 165-bed hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., just south of Washington. Creating the expanded facility in Bethesda - to be renamed the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at Bethesda - and building the new hospital at Fort Belvoir will cost a combined $1 billion, according to Taylor, who directed a multi-service group that developed the overall plan for changing the medical care delivery system.
Taylor said Thursday that the 450,000 military beneficiaries in the Washington area who currently rely on Walter Reed and Bethesda will see no net decline in health care services. And once the changes are completed, the Pentagon will be able to run the military medical care system in the national capital region for $100 million a year less than it costs today, he said.
_ Similar to the merging of Walter Reed and Bethesda services for the Washington area, the Pentagon would create a single, expanded medical center for the San Antonio area by closing Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and moving its resources to the 450-bed Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in northeastern San Antonio.
Brooke also would expand its trauma services. The Pentagon would build a new outpatient, same-day surgical center at Lackland.
_ Fort Sam Houston would get a new medical training center for enlisted personnel from all the services. Currently each service sends its enlisted people to separate sites for this training - Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas; Fort Sam Houston and Navy bases in Virginia, Illinois and California.
_ Fort Sam Houston also will be the home of a new "center of excellence" in battlefield health and trauma, to be staffed by people from all the military services. Similar joint-service centers will be created elsewhere for other specialties like infectious disease research.
Fort Sam Houston overall would gain about 9,000 positions. Lackland would lose a few thousand.
_ Medical centers on nine military bases in eight states will close their inpatient care facilities and become same-day surgical centers. They are at Fort Eustis, Va., Fort Knox, Ky., Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois, Andrews Air Force Base, Md., MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
_ The aerospace medicine program at Brooks City-Base - formerly Brooks Air Force Base - in San Antonio would be moved to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Wright-Patterson also would obtain the Navy's aero-medical research laboratory now located at Pensacola, Fla.
_ All military functions at Brooks City-Base would cease, Taylor said. The Pentagon currently leases the space it has used there from the city of San Antonio. "We're not shutting the doors to the place. We'll simply remove the military structure at Brooks City-Base," Taylor said.
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Walter Reed Army Medical Center at http://www.wramc.amedd.army.mil/
National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda at http://www.bethesda.med.navy.mil/
I wonder what condition the building is in. If it is in horrible shape (it is a bit older), it would make absolutely no sense to rebuild it, considering the cost of the land, labor and everything else that goes into remodeling and rebuilding a major hospital, especially in the DC area....
I don't have the link handy, there are moving it / merging it with another "name" mil hospital.
At least that is what the military thinks thinks it needs to do.
Of course, every politician thinks otherwise.
LVM
yeah...
they seem to be moving quite a bit of medical stuff to Wright Patterson AFB, which is where I work. They have a huge hospital and I think they could merge it with what Walter Reed pulls in....
"Center of Excellence"? You just know that some Colonel somewhere came up with this crappy name to make his first star.
I'm a GD ee too. ATP.
Wright Patterson is more than just the museum...there is quite a bit of stuff there actually....
I work for GD-NS......I work on computers and stuff like that....
here, check it out...
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/welcome.html
there is more there than their welcome page says, but this is just the UNCLASS version....
This is what the Air Force Surgeon General said today. I don't think this article reflects what he said at all.
then I wonder why they are closing it?
That would be more like a realignment to me personally....
Having both BAMC and Wilford Hall in the same city was not cost effective and Wilhall is not in very good shape.
Looks like they are moving some things back from Brooks that went to Brooks from Wright-Patt at the same time our family got orders for Kelly AFB. I think consolidating all medical research with the labs at Area B is a great idea. Never could figure out why they were at Brooks and not Wright-Patt.
having just been here at Wright Pat for nearly 5 months now, I am surprised they arent using it more. I guess that is what this is...
when I had my elbow surgery, I had to do a 3 month physical for a year afterwards, and that was always at Wright Pat. Too bad the elbow never quite recovered correctly....
Right now I would not trust a fu(*^g thing that the President and Don Rumsfeld come up with. As conservatives we set back and take anything these two come up with. Seldom is a word of criticism voiced by conservatives about the decisions that either one of these men makes.
It's time to do some critical thinking about the current administration and all of its decisions. The President clearly isn't given to putting the welfare of working Americans on his agenda. His wrong headed push for CAFTA is only going to benefit multi-national corporations who feel no sense of guilt when dealing in nations where child labor is rampant and slave wages are the norm. In fact our current trade policies encourage slavery.
It is a sorry time in our nation's history to be a conservative. If not for the war on terror the President's administration would be worse than Clinton's.
Pardon my rant.
ummmmm what does your rant have to do with the BRAC?
time's up...thats right
NOTHING!!!
In my job, I deal with Edwards and Hill AFB the most with F/A-22.
BTW - thank you for your service. :)
It is a sorry time in our nation's history to be a conservative.
Conservative? The above rant is straight out of anarchist/communist propaganda.
nice....I am wondering what the GD guys up at Groton are going to do now but it will figure itself out....
ohh sorry :)
yeah I work for GD Network Systems :)
no big deal. Going to Iraq gave me a ton of experience and got me in with GD, which is a great company to work for from what I can tell...
Well, we shouldn't think it's a bad thing against GD. Think about it. We need that base in CT. It's all speculation, but it may mean good things for GD Corp.
yeah...
they added 75 contractor positions at Wright Patterson. I know for a fact we will be in the running for them. But I dont worry about that stuff too much....
I used to work for CACI, and after being with GD, I wouldnt go back for any reason...
I am from that area about 25 miles north of Dayton and worked 13 years at Wright-Patt -- four of those in the Command Surgeon's office.
My boss at that time submitted a suggestion to the AF Surgeon General about consolidation and use of the Regional Medical Centers more but looks like it took all this time to do what he suggested years ago. He felt Wright-Patterson with AFIT and the Labs should be the consolidation for Medicine for the AF and other services for training and research. He always thought the Medical Services from each branch should be working side by side.
and he is (W)right :)
I work at NASIC now...
Wright-Patterson is home to Air Force Materiel Command Headqarters which consolidated AF Logistics and AF Systems Commands together.
They also have Air Force Information Technology which is like a college along with some of the best research labs in the Country. Also home to The National Air and Space Intelligence Center and a host of other things.
AF Museum is a small part of Wright-Patterson but if you are in the area, you have to visit the Museum -- they have done an outstanding job with the Museum.
Did they consolidate FTD into where you work now? FTD used to give daily updates to the AFLC Commander when I worked in the HQ Command Section.
Yes, I'd LOVE to visit tha great base of our great country. Thanks for the info. WP - I do not deal with them on a day-to-day transaction basis. We deal with Warner Robins AFB mostly and I'm just damn saddened by the base closings in general.
Guess I am a little confused. Walter Reed was completely and I do mean completely updated and remodeled in the late 1970s. Basically gutted and tore down and rebuilt all except the central front facade. I know I was there.
Just for your info the 70's was 30 years ago.
It's been a number of years since I've been there, but I remember WRAMC being a bit of a dump in a run-down, poorly accessible area.
The bottom line is that it's just a campus with old buildings.
I do realize it was 30 years ago, but that is not an 100 year old falling down facility. How many community hospitals are tore down because they are over 30 years old. Answer...none. They are updated, not tore down. Too expensive to rebuild from ground up. By the way, I am a nurse with over 30 years experience both in the military and civilian world. If we are going to start tearing down hospitals because they are over thirty years old our country is in a lot of trouble.
I do not know when you were there. I was there in the mid 70s when it was being remodeled. It is in a poor part of town. It was not a dump with crumbling buildings when I was there, but I can not account for what the Carter years or Clinton years may have done to the facility.
I guess my point is that it's not like the buildings are sacred or anything. They're just brick and mortar.
More important is that it's in an extremely high cost area, and that a better facility elsewhere will cost far less. In many ways, those who are assigned to those locations are the ones who take it in the chin with the cost of living issues. The same for the New Jersey bases....especially Monmouth. The same for Atlanta's Ft MacPherson.
Just buildings.
I think it comes from a person who is worried about the welfare of our nation. If you tell me where you got your copy of anarchist/communist propaganda I would be willing to take a look at it.
Whatever you do though, don't question anything that is currently happening in our nation because it might hinder H.Clinton from taking the White House in 08 and the liberals regaining the Senate and House.
Is NOTHING!!! different than nothing?
Have to admit I am a very happy person tonight. We were at Norton AFB, CA, and it closed, McClellan AFB, CA, and it closed, and Kelly AFB, TX, and it closed. Tonight Tinker AFB stays open and gains -- after going through the last two base closures sitting in front of the TV wondering where the family would end up next, this was a great day here in OK with this round of base closings.
We had just built a new house in Texas and had lived in it less than a year when the last BRAC was announced and shortly thereafter we came to Tinker AFB as part of the first group up here. Figured Tinker, Robins, and Hill were safe this time around because the AF cannot afford to lose anymore depot capacity.
Needless to say, in 1960, my cousin did not make it, but Ike's warmth and compassion for my aunt and her soldier son, did make a difference for her.
My youngest son was born at Walter Reed but time marches on. A newer facility would be more cost effective and could provide a better environment for the newest equipment, etc.
Walter Reed also has a great albiet strange Pathology Museum. I hope they save that for elsewhere. It has the bullet that killed Lincoln, the leg of some famous General from the Civil War, jars of strange deformaties like 2 headed babies, etc. A whole collection of weird things they've collected over the years to study Pathology.
I was also at WRAMC in the late 70's-early 80's. What department were you in? Perhaps our paths crossed. I was chief of radiation oncology at the time.
If you are speaking of Walter Reed it is not in a poor part of town. Its between 16th street and Ga, Ave, actually a better part of DC. But when you think of moving the facilities out to the Naval Center at Bethesda its not that far , only 7 or 8 miles. Why have multiple facilities when both are so close? If you think Walter Redd is in a bad part of town I would gladly take you on a tour of the really bad parts of DC. They make Walter Reed look like Westchester.
LOL!!
I don't know, but I think I see them walking around my building from time to time hehe :)
nahh just kiddin...
I don't know....I would have to ask...
CACI is another contractor that I used to work for. I am glad I don't have to work for them now :)
30 years is a long time for a hospital to not be renovated or updated, especially with the advances in medicine in the past 20 years or so....
---------------------------------------------
I'm there frequently. The facility is in good shape from what I see and the campus contains the first class Mologne House hotel for long term patients. Add the fact that they just built a large training facility and this makes little sense.
well the fact that they did just build something there was the kiss of death.
That is, unfortunately, how things tend to work with BRAC issues. If something new is built just before the list comes out, that is generally the kiss of Death to the entire complex....
Last time I was at Walter Reed was in the 1995 time frame. I spent a day there and was in various parts of the hospital. As memory served it looked fine - looked like any other hospital - operating rooms, ICU's, conference rooms etc.
As I understand it these are recommendations. There is still more process to go through - eventually there is an up or down vote in congress - but this is still not the final word.
I agree with the poster that said that in civillian life old hospitals are not torn down, they are rebuilt (I can think of a single exception - Brigham hospital in Boston that was pretty much tore down and rebuilt on the same site).
My guess (and it's only a guess) would be that Reed survives as the process goes forward.
BTTT
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