ICYMI: Short-staffed Navy hospital in Washington moves more than 700 patients off base for medical care
Senator Murray has repeatedly voiced serious concerns over staffing shortages and decline in services at Naval Hospital Bremerton, spoke with Naval leadership about the issue last May on a visit to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard — PHOTOS HERE
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, sent a letter to the Acting Director of the Defense Health Agency (DHA), Dr. David Smith, expressing serious concerns over chronic staffing shortages at Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB), which have forced the hospital to send hundreds of patients off base for medical care. In the letter, Murray outlined her alarm over the pattern of declining care and personnel mismanagement at one of the nation’s largest Naval bases and pressed Acting Director Smith for answers to questions including how the Military Health System and Defense Health Network plan to fill the vacancies in NHB’s Internal Medicine department.
“Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton is the third-largest Naval base in the country with 15,000 service personnel and 18,000 family members and retirees. Ensuring access to medical care for its servicemembers, retirees, and their families is crucial to maintaining military readiness. Yet NHB continues to experience staffing shortages, and no plan has been outlined to address them,” Murray wrote in the letter sent March 26th.
“In February, NHB spokesperson Doug Stutz confirmed that, since late November, the hospital’s internal medicine clinic has been staffed by only one physician for 2,200 patients. As a result, 700 retired military personnel and veterans have been transferred to facilities across Kitsap County. The reassignment of patients to new providers presents significant challenges, including disruptions in continuity of care which has led to gaps in treatment and potential declines in patient outcomes. It is also causing logistical and transportation barriers, particularly for older veterans or those with mobility limitations and difficulties in specialized care coordination, especially in designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs). These concerns must be addressed immediately,” Murray continued.
“The fact that DHA has struggled to resolve this issue with NHB within established military staffing systems raises serious concerns about whether DHA can address it in a timely manner. Furthermore, physician shortages have been an ongoing issue for the Kitsap County community, exacerbating NHB’s difficulties in recruiting and retaining medical personnel. Unfortunately, this downsize is part of a continuous trend in the declining quality of care at NHB,” Senator Murray wrote. “This pattern of declining care and personnel mismanagement at one of the largest Naval bases in the nation suggests a lack of attention to the healthcare needs of servicemembers, veterans, and their families in Kitsap County.”
Murray concluded by requesting a briefing from DHA detailing its plan to resolve long-term staffing shortages at NHB and prevent similar issues at other military medical facilities, and for answers to the following questions:
- When will the Military Health System and Defense Health Network fill the vacancies in NHB’s Internal Medicine department?
- What long-term policies and procedures are being implemented to improve NHB’s trajectory and ensure better quality of care for servicemembers, veterans, and their families?
- How does DHA prioritize staffing of medical professionals based on base size and installation locations in high-risk and health shortage areas?
In a Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee hearing last year, Senator Murray raised this issue with former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, pressing him on the Navy’s efforts to ensure adequate health care services are available at NHB as the facility faces a provider shortage combined with an increase in service members seeking care. And in a visit to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard last May, Murray spoke with Naval leadership about the reduction of services at NHB. Murray also sent a letter with former U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer raising concerns about the closure of the Labor and Delivery Department at NHB, among other issues, in October 2023.
A PDF of the full letter is available HERE.
###
