Introduction
Naval Hospital Medical Centre is situated in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States. It is widely recognized for being the oldest hospital that is still operational in the Navy system. It was built after Fort Nelson was brought down during the British Capture and occupation of the Town of Portsmouth, seating at half a mile from Portsmouth town. The Medical facilities available are at the available to the locals and the United States Navy. The hospital has taken care of sick residents, and wounded Navy in America’s history of warfare, ever since it’s opening in 1830, until today (Eisman, 2002).
Brief History of Portsmouth Naval Medical Center
The bricks used in the first construction of the Hospital were brought down from Fort Nelson, and to pay for the construction of the Hospital, marines and sailors were taxed 20cents each. Construction began on 2nd April 1827. During the Mexican-American war of 1847, the hospital took casualties from war for the first time. Then during 1855, the hospital carried on a humanitarian attempt to rescue civilian victims of yellow fever. This saw up to 600 patients admitted to the hospital. It has grown in capability and resource employing up to 530 000 medical staff and workers. The outbreak of war in 1917 caused an overload of patients at the hospital, necessitating a move to enlarge the hospital by adding forty-two new structures including thirty-eight patient blocks and four corpsmen barracks.
The city supported the building of the High rise of Portsmouth, building 215. Recently, more developments were experienced with the new Acute Care Facility being completed in 1998.
Challenges that the Hospital has encountered
Environmental
Portsmouth Naval hospital is known to have old facilities in its vicinity. Years of service to the community have seen it degrade in the status of its structures that have gradually worn out. The city of Portsmouth lacks in the capacity to allow for the expansion of the hospital into the city. It covers most of the town since it lies on a large piece of land (The Urban Land Institute, 2003). Fiscal problems may rise despite that the land is fairly considered un-taxable by the Government. Population data collected in 2002 showed a static town, though one can see constant constructions and development within the downtown area of Portsmouth.
Economic
The hospital gets revenue from the government as well as insurance companies affiliated with it. It has however experienced client challenges with its patients refusing to forward their insurance details for personal reasons. Its record keeping department was at first using analogue recording systems that presented loopholes in their system, but with the recent computerization of company records, it has caught up with insurance and finance companies that had been defrauding the hospital of millions of dollars in misplaced records (Eisman, 2002).
Government
The United States Government funds the hospital via the Department of healthcare as subsidies to cater for the operational expenses of the facilities at the hospital. Cases of people stealing identify from deceases military personnel have come up lately. The government has failed to harmonize records and databases of military data in the United States, creating yet another loophole for impersonators to take advantage of the hospitals facilities. However, the Government has taken initiative to cover the problem by firing the hospital comptroller, and reassigning a new commander upon noticing cases of monetary shortcomings. (Eisman, 2002) House Government Reform Committee seeks to follow up issues regarding such cases of mismanagement.
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