{"id":128304,"date":"2022-07-26T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T10:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=128304"},"modified":"2022-07-25T15:35:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T19:35:50","slug":"allegations-at-san-antonio-medical-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=128304","title":{"rendered":"Allegations at San Antonio Medical Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Col. Ken Bode, the outgoing commander of the 959th Medical Operations Squadron, says\u00a0 the Joint Base San Antonio hospital has a deeply ingrained toxic culture of \u201ccronyism and sycophancy\u201d that is \u201can affront to ideals of military leadership.\u201d\u00a0 Well, actually he says the Air Force side of it is OK, all the fault is on the Army side.<\/p>\n

Bode, an orthopedic spine surgeon, said he repeatedly raised problems to his chain of command but that his superiors downplayed or ignored the concerns. So he tried to make a point by quitting Tuesday, his final day on the job before his replacement took over Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Brooke Army Medical Center is a joint Army-Air Force organization with more than 240,000 beneficiaries in the San Antonio region. About 4,000 patients visit the its campus and six outpatient clinics each day.<\/p>\n

The 959th Medical Group employs 1,540 airmen who work alongside more than 6,000 Army personnel at the 425-bed facility.<\/p>\n

Service cultures clashed and egos ruled, causing friction on matters large and small, according to Bode, airmen on social media and one retired master sergeant who spoke to Air Force Times.<\/p>\n

The Army has eschewed cooperation and common sense at every turn, starting with its refusal to adopt a joint name like \u201cBrooke Military Medical Center\u201d instead, Bode wrote in his resignation letter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Air Force Times<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The Army made it clear that the airmen were guests in the building, a retired master sergeant who left Brooke Army Medical Center in 2015, three years after the 959th Medical Group stood up at the joint base, told Air Force Times.<\/p>\n

Airmen were held to Army rules that unnecessarily complicated their jobs and slowed medical procedures, the former respiratory specialist said Thursday.<\/p>\n

For example, the Army follows state laws that require troops to hold certain licenses to administer drugs. The Air Force holds itself to less prescriptive federal rules that qualify more airmen to handle medicine without specific licenses, the retired master sergeant said.<\/p>\n

That means that in certain cases, airmen have to find soldiers who are certified to administer a particular medication instead of doing it themselves. In other situations, airmen are told they have to go through soldiers to speak to physicians instead of contacting the doctors directly, the former senior noncommissioned officer said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ibid<\/p>\n

Basically the allegations say that since the Base Realignment and Closure commission (BRAC) mandates, the Army and Air Force medical facilities were supposed to merge. The allegations are that despite 10 years of co-locating, the Army has done little or nothing to integrate with the Air Force folks and treats them like red-headed stepchildren, as well as acting like office politics are more important than patient care.<\/p>\n

The Air Force Times allegations are pretty damning, especially as petty and political as we have seen the Pentagon acting. I’d like to hold opinion until after the attendant investigations are done – only one side of the story has been heard. and the last time the good Colonel complained, 5 of 9 accusations were borne out – but that means almost half, 4 of 9, were not. Ought to be interesting to watch, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Col. Ken Bode, the outgoing commander of the 959th Medical Operations Squadron, says\u00a0 the Joint Base … Allegations at San Antonio Medical Center<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,187,359,646],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-air-force","category-army","category-morale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}