Say new hospitals might not be ready before old center closes Doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center fear that two new military hospitals won’t be ready to properly treat wounded soldiers, retired veterans and other military patients by the time the District’s Army hospital is closed in September.
The Defense Department will begin transferring patients next month from the District to an expanded Walter Reed-National Naval Medical Center campus in Bethesda and a new community hospital at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
Despite claims from top medical brass that the new hospitals are ready, sources familiar with the move say there’s little room for error in the military’s complex plan to schedule surgeries at as many as four different sites in Maryland and Virginia.
“They are stretched to the limit with this damn self-inflicted deadline,” said a Walter Reed doctor who asked not to be named.
“If we don’t have the patient facilities to support these guys, that’s a real problem,” according to a congressional staff aide familiar with the military’s plans. “Wounded-warrior care, that’s the entire mission of the military’s medical care in the capital region.”
The Department of Defense has spent almost $2.5 billion on the two new hospitals, which must open by Sept. 15.
By that date, Walter Reed in the District will be shuttered. About two-thirds of the hospital’s patients will have moved to Bethesda, and the rest to Fort Belvoir.
Vice Adm. John Mateczun, commander of the Joint Task Force National Capital Region Medical, said last week that the combined operating room capabilities at Bethesda and Fort Belvoir would be capable of handling treatment of all those now at Walter Reed.
But neither of the new hospitals will be fully functional by the deadline, according to sources familiar with the plans. Only 13 of 20 operating rooms will be ready at Bethesda. An additional 10 operating rooms at Fort Belvoir are still in the last stages of construction, sources said.
There will be fewer operating rooms at the two hospitals after the move than are now available, which could strain capacity during the peak fighting season in Iraq and Afghanistan when U.S. troops experience the most casualties.
To compensate for the lack of space, some surgeries may be transferred to Fort Meade and Andrews Air Force Base.
“Is it optimal? No. Is it palatable? Probably,” said a congressional official. “The jury’s still out on how successful it’s going to be.”
Local government officials have urged the Pentagon to delay the move, and a deal appeared to be in the works this summer that would give the secretary of defense the authority to delay the hospital shift.
But Congress failed to deliver legislation that would authorize the delay. “Nothing has changed to negate the worn out rhetoric of, ‘We have to make this deadline, it will work,’ ” according to the Walter Reed doctor.
