Photo By Dan Grubb | Byron Powell, who has worked at the current and previous Womack facilities, looks over...... read more read more
For many, Womack Army Medical Center brings back memories of treating patients, delivering babies or walking through the halls with coworkers. For Shannon Dockery, the medical center is woven into her family history.
‘I got married in the chapel here at Womack’’, the longtime Womack pharmacy clerk recalled. “We were supposed to get married in my husband’s church, but they were booked. One day I brought my mother here for a doctor’s appointment. A chaplain walks by to talk with patients and asks my mother if there’s anything he can do for her. She immediately replies ‘Yes, marry my daughter!’ and the rest was history.” Dockery, whose mother worked in the previous location as a librarian, says the family even enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinners at Womack as well.
That previous location opened in August of 1958. The nine-story, 500-bed-capacity Womack Army Community Hospital is the predecessor to its current version. The Womack Ambulatory Patient Care Annex opened in March 1974. On October 1, 1991, Womack changed its name to Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg. One year later, on September 3, 1992, officials broke ground for a new Womack.
The facility was named after Bryant Homer Womack, a Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipient, who served during the Korean War. He was posthumously honored for his actions on March 12, 1952. During a firefight, his unit began taking heavy casualties. He exposed himself to enemy fire to treat other soldiers. When wounded himself, he refused treatment and continued to give aid to others. He was the last soldier to withdraw from the engagement and later died of his injuries. He was officially issued the Medal of Honor the next year.
“A lot of us here at the medical center actually visited PFC Womack’s home back in the day,” said Byron Powell. Powell, who has been at Womack Army Medical Center for more than four decades, served first as a soldier and then as a civilian . He first arrived at Womack in 1980 as a sergeant, moved up to first sergeant by 1996 and even assisted with planning aspects of the current facility before being hired as a civilian. He currently serves as Athletic Director and Special Events Coordinator for Womack.
“We visited the family at the house his father built by hand,” added Powell. “Inside the Womack home, it looked like a shrine they had dedicated to his life. We shot a video about him there and then had a special ‘Womack Day’ where we invited his family to come and visit.”
Today, Womack cares for the largest patient population in the U.S. Army, with more than 200,000 beneficiaries. Serving the largest U.S. Army installation in the world, Womack Clinics provide care for more than 2,700 patients a day. On a typical day, the medical center treats more than 200 patients in its emergency room, sees more than 1,400 dental patients, delivers half a dozen babies and fills almost 4,400 prescriptions.
Martha Maloy, a 35-year veteran of the facility and Deputy Director for the Department of Medical Education, said the move from the previous facility was surreal. “It was very strange when we moved in,” she said. “There were no people here and our staff would just get up and walk the building sometimes and it was empty. We worked until 5:30 and there were no people in the elevators, there was no food. It was just so quiet. Not like today.”
Douglas Thomas, a Virtual Technician part of health informatics was a contractor working on the current facility five years before becoming an employee at Womack in 2000. “We were doing some work on the ninth floor before it opened,” he said. “Another contractor working with us had an aversion to elevators, so we agreed to take the nine flights of stairs up to do the work in this huge building.” The mistake was that the workers had just come back from a buffet lunch before the climb. “We were huffing and puffing and feeling sick by the time we got there, so needless to say we informed the coworker that he could walk all nine floors back down after the work if he wanted to, but we were all going to be taking the elevator,” Thomas laughed.
When it was finally time to make the move, Kriestin Kleinschmidt, a supervisor and Nurse Consultant at Womack, said even for patients it was all hands on deck. “The patients were super excited and yet a little anxious,” she said. “I had one patient say, ‘Oh my God, I woke up this morning and I'm having chest pains so I’m at the hospital and oh, by the way, they're moving today’. Everyone really came together though. Everybody had a great attitude.”
Womack has enjoyed a rich history in becoming the state-of-the-art facility it is today but has always been led with the mindset of putting patients first …here is a timeline;
• Camp Bragg Base Hospital was the first military hospital at Camp Bragg. It was built in September 1918 with two dispensaries and a headquarters. The hospital was a 500-bed facility located in 22 buildings.
• USA Station Hospital One was built after the first hospital was closed in 1919. It was built in June,1932 with an 83-bed, three-story facility. It closed in 1941 once USA Station Hospital Number Two and Three were built.
• USA Station Hospital Number Two and Three were two hospitals built in February 1941. USA Station Hospital Two has 1,680 beds, and USA Station Hospital Three has 1,002 beds.
• On March 9, 2000, the new Womack Army Medical Center opened for $400 million. It is 1,020,359 square feet in size and sits on a 163-acre wooded site.
”I think that one of the things that stands out to me about working here is that you get to see the different types of patients that we have every day,” said Perry Wadsworth, an attorney for the medical center who has served Womack for more than 25 years. “Being a former soldier myself, I can identify with all of them. You realize you're supporting and helping people and are involved in the entire scope of someone's life—from the cradle to the grave.”
“Celebrating 25 years in this hospital is a wonderful milestone,” says Col. Stephanie Mont, commander of the facility. “This military hospital ensures the health of Fort Bragg, the largest Army installation in the world. Our people are the heart of the hospital. Every day our team is committed to providing safe, quality health care that ensures active-duty service men and women are ready to serve wherever they are called while also supporting healthy military families and retirees.”
Col. Mont said focus is always on customer service and what can be done better and more efficiently. “Over the last 25 years, the current hospital served as a space for healing, celebrated the arrival of new life, and provided comfort to families during moments of grief,” she said. “That continues every day as we strive to continually improve our service. Regardless of changes in the community or the missions our military is directed toward, Womack will serve as a beacon for health in the center of the universe.”
And that beacon has proven its worth. In 2017, Womack Army Medical Center earned the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for hospital accreditation by demonstrating continuous compliance with its performance standards. More recently, Womack enjoyed back-to-back Grade-A Leapfrog assessments and in January, the Superior Unit Award for excellence performed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Next month, Womack will celebrate the milestone for a week in March by recognizing the anniversary. For more about Womack history, visit https://www.dvidshub.net/news/490049/womacks-namesake-honors-korean-war-medal-honor-recipient-delivers-state-art-care-today
| Date Taken: | 02.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2025 10:16 |
| Story ID: | 491207 |
| Location: | FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | FORT LIBERTY, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 55 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Womack Celebrates 25 Years at Current Post, by Dan Grubb, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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