“Our Airmen are proud to serve, but there is something even more special to our team members in providing care to our Nation’s citizens alongside our civilian medical partners,” said Col. Christian Lyons, 88th Medical Group commander. “Nothing is more inspiring than the military/civilian partnership being demonstrated right now to save lives.”
Lyons added: “Wright Patterson Medical Center stands ready to provide additional teams of Airmen Medics in support of the president and our nation.”
Kristen Van Wert, a spokeswoman for 88th Medical Group, said Friday Medical Center personnel have been deployed “constantly” to help in the COVID fight.
“It’s part of the COVID response, but it’s not specific to what Biden announced (Thursday),” Van Wert said.
Less than a year ago, Medical Center personnel were also deployed to Michigan. Today, the latest deployments are happening at a time when staffing shortages are challenging the base Medical Center, the Air Force’s second largest hospital, due to illnesses among staff and a high number of COVID cases overall.
At the time of a recent Wright-Patterson town hall meeting on Facebook, some 60 members of the center’s staff were COVID-positive, Lyons said at that time.
“I implore all those watching today to realize that routine medical care and elective procedures may be deferred in order to accommodate the high volume of inpatients across the region,” Lyons said then.
Omicron’s surge in cases has led to a high number of hospitalizations, and hospitals are dealing with “more and more patients in the midst of staffing challenges and faced with a highly transmissible virus that does not spare our health care workers,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday.
Last year, some 120 Airmen from the 88th Medical Group were sent to a COVID-19 mission in Detroit.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell Thursday said 1,000 active-duty military medical personnel would form six teams to deploy to hospitals in Ohio, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New Mexico.
“They’re part of a major deployment of our nation’s armed forces to help hospitals across the country manage this surge of the Omicron virus — this surge that’s having an impact on hospitals,” Biden said Thursday.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the 1,000 are only the “first wave” of expected deployments.
Base leaders are planning another COVID update on Facebook at 4:30 p.m. next Wednesday
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