An undated photo of the Naval Hospital Bremerton at Naval Base Kitsap in Washington. (U.S. Navy)
TACOMA, Wash. — The internal medicine clinic at the Navy’s third largest base in the United States is now staffed with one doctor for 2,200 patients, forcing officials to move one-third of the backlog of cases to medical care off the base, service officials said.
“Those numbers just don’t add up,” said Capt. Molly Jenkins, executive officer of Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington. “We did not make this decision lightly and have been studying this issue for months.”
The hospital serves Navy Base Kitsap, which has 15,000 service personnel and 18,000 family members and retirees spread across the 12,000-acre base on Puget Sound, west of Seattle.
Hospital spokesman Douglas Stutz said, as a first step, care for about 700 retired military enrolled in Tricare for Life, a Medicare medical supplement plan for veterans, will have their care transferred from the internal medicine clinic to civilian doctors and facilities in surrounding Kitsap County.
Stutz said the hospital has about 50 medical caregivers, which include military and civilian doctors, nurses, and Navy medical corpsmen. They are assigned to various specialty departments at the hospital.
Transfers of military personnel and attrition among civilian employees have left only one doctor for the internal medicine clinic at the hospital, often the first stop for new patients seeking care, Stutz said.
With 2,200 patients assigned to the clinic, they often have long waits to see a doctor.
“We understand the concerns that come with changes in provider availability,” Stutz said. “In addition to normal personnel changes, military medicine has been affected by the nationwide shortage of primary care providers, which has impacted staffing at our hospital.”
He said the clinic will remain open with one physician, a Navy medical corps officer. The hospital hopes to hire more doctors in the coming months.
Hospital officials said finding new doctors for patients moved to community care isn’t guaranteed. Naval hospital staff is working with patients to find new providers.
While Kitsap County and neighboring Pierce and King counties have several civilian hospitals, the Bremerton area is experiencing a shortage of doctors. The Kitsap Public Health District Board in July 2024 issued a public health alert due to “high costs and insufficient access of health care.”
A state Health Care Research Center report in 2024 said while Kitsap County’s more than 277,000 residents make up about 3.5% of the state’s 7.95 million people, it is home to 1.6% of physicians in the state.
Patients at Naval Hospital Bremerton can be referred to specialists at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, about 45 minutes south. The Bremerton hospital operates a free shuttle to the Army medical facility that takes 90 minutes to travel in each direction.
Naval Base Kitsap was created in June 2004 by consolidating five separate facilities under one command. The installation hosts about 70 tenant commands, including the homeport of the aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan at Bremerton. Ten ballistic missile submarines and two attack submarines are homeported at Bangor, according to the official Naval Vessel Register. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility at the base is one of the Navy’s four major shipyards in the United States. The Manchester Fuel Depot and Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Keyport are also located at the base.
