As Fort Leonard Wood’s new hospital prepares to open next spring, the base’s commanding general recalls the battle to keep the medical center from being downgraded to a clinic.
Major Gen. Christopher Beck said the proposal at the time was routine and included several military hospitals across the country.
“DHA, the Defense Health Agency – they were doing what organizations do,” he told Missourinet. “They try, just like we all do, to be as efficient as possible when they deliver their program and they have a nationwide, frankly, a global program. So, what they were doing is they were looking at ways to potentially trim costs.”
Gen. Beck said, though, that the team at Fort Leonard Wood “did a great job” of persuading the Defense department to not downgrade the base hospital.
“And frankly, the Defense Health Agency did a great job listening as we laid out the criticality of this hospital to not only on-post but off-post capabilities,” he said.
Those include the Emergency Room’s decontamination capabilities.
“That’s critical to what we do at Fort Leonard Wood, as we have chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training, just as part of one of the branches we train, and having that decontamination capability when we do agent training on Fort Leonard Wood is critical,” Beck said. “Obviously, none of our neighboring off-post facilities have that.”
He also told Missourinet that the relationship hospital leaders are developing with the Veterans Administration to provide medical care and services played a role in the hospital not being downgraded to a clinic.
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