Keesler Medical Center closure could leave military in the lurch

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Keesler Medical Center closure could leave military in the lurch


By MICHAEL NEWSOM
5 June 2005



BILOXI - Keesler Medical Center survived Hurricane Camille without a scratch, but downsizing in the Department of Defense could gut the hospital, leaving 56,000 beneficiaries looking for treatment of serious illness in civilian hospitals. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission will decide by the end of the year if the full-scale military hospital should be transformed into an outpatient-only medical center with clinics and ambulatory services.

That would be a major shift from the hospital's existing mission. Keesler would lose its residency program, which trains about 100 doctors and nurses each year. And active-duty personnel and military retirees would lose access to certain free medical care provided at the hospital. Keesler made the short list of threatened installations about three weeks ago. The move to close Keesler Medical Center could save the federal government about $23 million per year, officials said.

The 1-million-square-foot hospital has an operating budget of about $102 million per year. Government Accountability Office officials believe the Air Force can defray the cost by sending the people that now use Keesler to civilian hospitals. The reasoning is it would be cheaper to farm out treatment than operate a hospital and pay for health coverage for military personnel.

The biggest expenditure for the hospital is drugs, which carry a price tag of $35 million per year.U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor said the hospital should be spared because the decision to put it on the list was a hasty one. "I don't think the military has thought things through. There are a lot of consequences, and all of them are bad," Taylor said. He said he will be lobbying members of the commission to reconsider and will modify the Defense Authorization Bill with language that would try to improve the situation. He said the loss of Keesler for active-duty personnel and retirees will be a substantial one.

"A young enlisted man, he leaves Keesler with his wife, a baby and no bill," Taylor said. "When they walk out of a civilian hospital, they will walk out with a wife, a baby and a bill." Taylor said the head of the BRAC commission, Anthony Principi, was the secretary for Veterans Affairs, a cabinet post, under President George W. Bush. He said Principi wanted to close the Gulfport VA Hospital a few years ago and then shift the load to Keesler Medical Center, which he now wants to close, which Taylor finds ironic. One side effect of the potential closure could be the loss of the residency program.

The program trains about 100 doctors and nurses each year and Keesler Medical Center's man-in-charge, Brig. Gen. David Young, said he is concerned about this. "We've been training doctors for over 50 years here. They are nationally ranked," Young said. Young said he feels Keesler's hospital lost points with BRAC because the building is nearly 50 years old and its equipment is expensive to maintain. He said he theorizes 60 percent of the doctors along the Gulf Coast are here because they were trained at Keesler.That statement is backed up by an anecdote from U.S. Sen. Trent Lott." The doctor that delivered both my children was in the Air Force and was stationed at the base.

He married an Ocean Springs girl and moved to Pascagoula," Lott said. "He has delivered about about a third of all the babies born in Pascagoula." Lott said he has never supported BRAC. "I have voted against it since 1979," he said. He said he, Taylor and other state leaders will push to keep Keesler, and other installations intact and fully operational. "We're going to do our best," Lott said. "We have been through three rounds, and not had a single base closed in Mississippi."

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)