Earlier this year, the military opened the Red Hill Clinic to provide treatment to those facing long-term health effects from the November 2021 jet fuel water crisis.
It has seen about 130 patients since it opened in January, and about 75 have been referred to specialty care, as reported by the Defense Health Agency.
For comparison, jet fuel contaminated the homes of nearly 93,000 people that November.
Dr. Bill Rice, a physician with the Defense Health Agency Clinic, acknowledged at a Fuel Tank Advisory Committee meeting on June 6 that many of the military families who were on island for the contamination event may have moved before the clinic opened.
Rice argued that "many of those stay within our system, assuming that they're not retiring or getting out of the military."
"We have, really, a few ways to address this, so providers are generally aware of what occurred here and they have really a wealth of resources to back up," Rice said. "We have a robust defense public health system, and to include others in my specialty that they can, that providers can reach out to."
But military and civilian families at public meetings have stated a distrust in the military as a reason for why they haven’t made appointments with the clinic.
Kat McClanahan, who spoke at the meeting last week, said she continues to struggle with health-related symptoms.
"Here we are again today, families continue having to testify and essentially beg for information and help after you exposed us to dangerous toxins," McClanahan said. "But over the last year and a half, we continue finding out that much was hidden from us for months from November of 2021 through March 22, 2022."
McClanahan said the Navy "buried or delayed for over three months results" related to antifreeze in the water, which may have caused delays in proper health diagnosis.
"If Navy really wants to right the wrong as you have claimed, protect us from those within your own ranks that lack the integrity to do the right thing. Care enough to be honest with us," McClanahan said.
Rice said there's an 11-person team reviewing about 650 medical records looking for trends in reported symptoms, as well as gender and age.
"They had no personally identifiable information, such as names, phone numbers, addresses, anything like that," Rice said. "They saw only the medical information in those in those records, and they are currently still going through the analysis."
