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Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are pressing the U.S. Department of War for answers over a proposal that could sharply reduce services at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon.
- The hospital could lose inpatient care.The Defense Health Agency’s proposal would eliminate Eisenhower’s general inpatient beds, meaning patients who need to stay overnight for hospital-level treatment could no longer be admitted there.
- Major surgery and extended ICU care would end.Under the plan, the medical center would no longer offer major operations or prolonged intensive-care services. Its operating rooms would be limited to outpatient procedures, such as tonsillectomies and hernia repairs.
- The emergency room would become urgent care.Eisenhower’s emergency department would close and be converted into a walk-in urgent-care clinic, a change that could alter where military-connected patients seek emergency treatment.
- Up to 40,000 people could be redirected elsewhere.Warnock and Ossoff say the loss of Eisenhower’s 60 inpatient beds and six operating rooms could send as many as 40,000 active-duty service members, retirees and family members to other health providers in the Augusta area.
- The senators want the Pentagon to show its work.In an Aug. 4 letter to the Department of War and the DHA, the senators called the potential changes “unacceptable” and requested the data, cost estimates and local input used to determine that civilian hospitals could absorb the added demand. They also questioned why Naval Hospital Jacksonville was removed from a later list of facilities facing a possible end to inpatient care.
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This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Senators demand answers on Fort Gordon hospital downgrade
