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Science Forum Index » Medicine - Cardiology Forum » Hurts my heart # too many to keep track of
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| Author |
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| William Wagner |
 Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 4:28 pm |
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/23/walter_reed/
The long-term wounds of Walter Reed
Despite military officials' "surprise" at recent coverage, Salon exposed
inadequate care and an overwhelmed system unfriendly to vets beginning
two years ago.
By Mark Benjamin
Mary Robles, 5, with her father, Master Sgt. Daniel Robles, during a
Purple Heart ceremony Jan. 28 at the Center for the Intrepid at Fort Sam
Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Robles was injured in Iraq last spring.
Feb. 23, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has scrambled this week to
contain media coverage of scandalous conditions for war veterans who are
outpatients at the acclaimed Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington. The lack of services and care, raised by articles in the
Washington Post in recent days, were first exposed and brought to the
attention of military officials by Salon in a series of investigative
reports beginning more than two years ago. Nonetheless, with a spotlight
on the problems again now, top officials are claiming they did not know
about them. They are also seeking to convey the message that the
problems are relatively inconsequential and will be easily fixed.
In a press conference on Wednesday, the highest civilian official in
charge of the military medical program, Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Health Affairs Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., said of the failures at
Walter Reed: "This news caught me -- as it did many other people --
completely by surprise." At the same time, top brass tried to keep the
focus on moldy walls, mouse droppings and other squalid but easily fixed
conditions reported on by the Post from Building 18, a 54-room facility
just off campus from the main hospital grounds across Georgia Avenue.
"We were absolutely disappointed in the status of the rooms and found
delays and lack of attention to detail to the building's repairs
inexcusable," Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, said at
the press conference.
Winkenwerder referred to the issues raised as "quality-of-life
experience" problems for outpatients at Walter Reed and denied there was
a systemic problem with military health care. "That is not the issue,"
he stated.
It was a maneuver with little promise of standing up to scrutiny. What
the renewed coverage again dragged out into the open, now four years
into the Iraq war, is an ongoing failure to treat a growing number of
outpatients in an already overwhelmed military healthcare system. It
also points to the issue of compensating veterans for their wounds over
the long term, which veterans advocates say has proved to be a
complicated, time-consuming process that has pit many injured soldiers
against the military in a fight for dollars.
And these problems extend far beyond Walter Reed hospital. Similar
disgraces have played out for outpatients recovering at Fort Stewart,
Ga., and Fort Carson, Colo., according to other media reports. Steve
Robinson, director of Veterans Affairs at Veterans for America, has been
visiting soldiers at Walter Reed and at other installations across the
country since the beginning of the war. He calls the situation a
national failure.
Robinson said the Pentagon is now focusing on mice droppings, in hopes
that the real, and much more complicated story, will go away. "They were
happy to talk about mice and mold because that is something they can
clean up," Robinson said. "What we are talking about is a systemic
problem where soldiers are left unattended in the barracks. They are
sharing medications. They are drinking like alcoholics," and waiting for
treatment, he said. "Those without families are isolated. And they are
up against the largest, most complicated worker compensation claim
process in the world today, which is the military discharge process."
Almost everyone agrees that amputees get top-flight treatment, the
source of Walter Reed's sterling reputation. But the system breaks down
for outpatients, some of whom are struggling with seriously debilitating
but less visible wounds such as PTSD or traumatic brain injuries.
Any doctor with experience at Walter Reed knows that the military
healthcare system is overloaded -- and has been for some time now.
"We're overwhelmed in terms of resources," one Walter Reed physician
told Salon in a January 2006 report. Referring to inadequate care and
misdiagnosis, he said, "A lot of things are missed because the doctors
are swamped."
The hospital has treated more than 6,000 patients from the war zones.
But a complicating factor is that the military is making decisions about
treating outpatients for their wounds while at the same time determining
how much in disability payments they should get -- out of Pentagon
coffers -- for war-related health problems that might last a lifetime.
The Byzantine system for putting a price tag on wounds is called the
Medical Evaluation Board process. The maze of regulations and paperwork
is mind-numbingly difficult to navigate, and it moves at a glacial pace.
It often takes months, sometimes years, for a determination to be
reached.
To make matters worse, soldiers widely believe that system creates a
disincentive for the Army to recognize war-related health problems
because it takes money away from bullets and bombs. Soldiers think it
corrupts the diagnoses of their problems and forces them into a lengthy,
complex fight for dollars when they should be concentrating on
recovering.
In the past military officials have maintained that the two programs,
medical care and disability decisions, are separate. But many soldiers
say that is not the case. "We have met soldier after soldier after
soldier who says, 'My injury is not reflected in my Medical Evaluation
Board,'" Robinson said. "They firmly believe that there is a conscious
effort to screw them out of [disability benefits] they are entitled to."
At Wednesday's press conference, Cody only briefly mentioned the Medical
Evaluation Board process when asked by a reporter, "What are the
complaints you hear from the troops particularly?"
Cody responded that the military was looking into that complicated
process of assessing injuries, but he talked at length about mouse
droppings. Adding to the air of superficiality, Cody announced that
Building 18 would also be given a new name. "I will personally oversee
the plan to upgrade Building 18," he promised. "We'll soon change the
name of it," he announced. "Referring to a place where our soldiers stay
as Building 18 is not appropriate."
For family of some soldiers who have gone through the grinding process
of trying to get good outpatient care and fair compensation at Walter
Reed, the press conference was frustrating. "The building is not the
issue," said Annette McLeod, whose husband, Spc. Wendell McLeod Jr.
waited four months for Walter Reed to diagnose his traumatic brain
injury. "It is the treatment," she said. Annette had to give up her job
to help take care of her husband and push the Army to recognize her
husband's ailments, and the McLeods fought with the Army for months over
disability payments.
There has been no shortage of opportunities for military officials to
learn of the problems at Walter Reed and elsewhere. In addition to my
series of reports for Salon, in October 2003, I wrote a story for United
Press International about soldiers back from Iraq waiting a long time
for doctor's appointments in squalid barracks at Fort Stewart, Ga., and
fighting for compensation. (Military officials who were shocked by the
headline in Sunday's Post, "Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's
Top Medical Facility," must have missed or forgotten about the headline
from that UPI piece, "Sick, Wounded U.S. Troops Held in Squalor.") And
last December, National Public Radio's Daniel Zwerdling compiled a
compelling portrayal of soldiers returning from Iraq with acute PTSD and
not receiving adequate mental health care at Fort Carson, Colo. The word
"neglect" could fairly describe the treatment depicted in Zwerdling's
thorough report.
Given all the press that has been dedicated to a similar pattern of
neglect for outpatients at Walter Reed and other facilities, it seems
hard to imagine that top Pentagon officials were completely surprised by
the latest account of the deepening damage to American service members
from five years of war, and the U.S. military's failure to adequately
treat them.
--
S Jersey USA Zone 5 Shade
http://www.ocutech.com/ High tech Vison aid
This article is posted under fair use rules in accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and is strictly for the educational
and informative purposes. This material is distributed without profit. |
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