Members of Congress are angry thatthe Department of Defense was given ample opportunity to delay the move of tens of thousands of patients and employees in the Washington region, only to pass at the chance until the eleventh hour.
Federal employees have begun their shift to Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, the Mark Center in Alexandria and a new Walter Reed medical campus in Bethesda. Lawmakers and doctors are worried about the hospitals’ ability to care for wounded warriors, as well as the traffic congestion caused by the military facilities.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said the Defense Department was given plenty of time to request an extension for the military’s Base Realignment and Closure plan, more commonly known as BRAC.
But each time members of the House Armed Services Committee, on which Wilson serves, broached the possibility of a delay, agency officials declined. Congress first began to ask if a delay was needed as early as 2009, according to officials.
“They just seemed so confident they could reach the goal that they didn’t accept our concerns,” said Wilson, who added he believed the department’s handling of the process was dishonest. “Over and over we tried to address this in every way.”
Now defense workers and patients must complete their moves by the Sept. 15 deadline, while only minor transportation improvements have been made to local roads. And military facilities, such as the new Bethesda hospital, are stretched beyond capacity, requiring some patients to move south to Fort Belvoir for their care.
The Defense Department did request an extension earlier this year, only when it was too late for Congress to finalize any action allowing a delay, said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va.
“The fact that the DOD is only now at the eleventh hour requesting a BRAC delay is just one more example of this BRAC round’s shortcomings,” Moran said. “It was obvious to everyone but the DOD that completing the BRAC moves and mitigating their effects upon surrounding communities could not be completed by the September deadline.”
Defense Department officials acknowledged that until this year they opposed extending the deadline, but remained steadfast in their position out of concerns for disrupting the process and increasing the cost of a plan designed to save the military billions of dollars.
“The department is closely monitoring implementation of all BRAC recommendations and will be prepared to make use of the authority [to delay] as soon as it is enacted,” according to defense spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin.
Wilson says he still has faith in the military medical system to get the job done, but is concerned about the treatment of wounded warriors returning from overseas.
“I would be glad to back up our medical personnel in any way, because we’ve just got to be attentive for our wounded warriors in every way,” he said. “And I hope that the proper officials will consider concerns by people who are administering this.”
