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FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — About a quarter of the patients at Fort Bragg's Clark Health Clinic will be reassigned to other Army clinics because of a shortage of health care providers.
Roughly 8,000 of the 30,000 patients at the health clinic will be moved to other clinics on or off the post, the Fayetteville Observer (http://bit.ly/1IaoTfP ) reported. Patients will be notified by letter.
Soldiers who are assigned to Clark Health Clinic will remain there, but family members and retirees could be among those reassigned.
Col. Ronald Stephens, commander of Womack Army Medical Center, said officials have started the process of reassigning patients, which should be completed within the next few weeks.
Stephens said permanent change of station orders and vacancies has caused a shortage of health care providers, making it necessary to reassign patients.
"The perfect storm has brewed and come to a head to the point where we have several thousand patients enrolled at Clark that didn't have a primary care manager," Stephens said.
Stephens said the hospital is recruiting more health care providers, including doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
"As time marches on, we're going to get more and more primary care providers," Stephens said. "Some are military, some are civilian. We're working closely with the civilian personnel office at Fort Bragg to bring those civilian primary care providers on as quickly and as efficiently as possible."
Clark Health Clinic, which serves Special Operations Command, is Fort Bragg's second-largest clinic to Robinson Health Clinic, which serves soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division.
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Information from: The Fayetteville Observer, http://www.fayobserver.com
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