Town hall: 51st FW/CC addresses concerns

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  • By 51st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  Brig. Gen. Joe Reynes, 51st Fighter Wing commander, hosted a quarterly town hall meeting Tuesday, giving all members of Team Osan a chance to directly ask questions to him. The following are the questions that were not answered at the meeting due to time restraints. 

I had a concern with the base hospital here. This is the first base I have ever been stationed where there is no sick call. I have been sick for two weeks and called them and they told me I can not be seen until another week. We are not allowed to go off base to a clinic and the one on base we have to wait a week to be seen. Is there any way we can correct this so if people can be seen? 

I am sorry to hear you had problems getting an appointment at the clinic. Due to severe staffing shortages in providers, the 51st Medical Group was struggling to provide both acute and routine care over the summer and I expect this contributed to the difficulty you experienced. 

Unfortunately, the Air Force medical service has eliminated sick call across the AF, although many locations still may offer an Acute Care Clinic option. Since the 51st MDG has an emergency room, it does not require an Acute Care Clinic to meet same day requirements. 

The 51st MDG is held to Air Force medical access standards to see patients for acute care appointments within 24 hours. We can generally provide this access with either an appointment with your primary care manager or by providing you access to the emergency room. 

The base ER is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so we should always be able to address your acute care needs, even if your PCM clinic is not available. 

The routine access standard is 7 days and this is usually met by providing you a routine appointment with your PCM. 

Flight Medicine does offer an acute care period in the mornings, but only for those enrolled to Flight Medicine. 

Are there going to be swimming lessons available at the pools? Have they looked into offering fee-based lessons like they are doing for the pool admissions? 

The primary problem we have in providing swim lessons year round is finding an American Red Cross certified water safety instructor authorized to provide lessons on a military base. Unfortunately, there are no certified instructors in Korea that can provide this service that we know of.  Even though the lifeguard contractor is an American Red Cross certified lifeguard instructor, he cannot provide a staff to teach swimming. As soon as we find someone who is able to teach, we will look into starting a program. 

Can we extend the brunch hours at the O'Club on Sunday? 

Right now there is no data that goes one way or the other regarding if opening the club for a longer period of time is cost effective. Starting Nov. 5, we will extend the time one half hour for a three month test to see if we can generate enough sales to be cost effective.  If not, we will return to normal hours and, if so, we will test an additional half hour. 

Additional Questions and responses will be printed in the next MiG Alley Flyer.