Bill to improve conditions at Military Hospitals

[Texsox]

Obama, McCaskill to introduce legislation to improve conditions at military hospitals WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Claire McCaskill of Missouri plan to introduce legislation that aims to improve conditions at military hospitals, according to a statement from both senators issued Tuesday.

 

The proposed legislation comes on the heels of a Washington Post expose that detailed substandard conditions for many wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, including "mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses."

 

"Caring for our returning heroes is one of the things we can still get right about this war, and that's why the deterioration of the conditions at Walter Reed is both appalling and unacceptable," Obama said in the statement.

 

The legislation calls for increasing the training of caseworkers at Walter Reed, requiring more inspections, establishing timelines for repairs of the facility, providing soldiers with psychological counseling, and increasing congressional oversight.

 

Obama is a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee while McCaskill holds a seat on the Armed Services Committee.

[EvilMonkey]

I would respect the bill more if it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to an article. Especially since Obama is running already, anything he does will be looked at as an attempt to win votes, whether it is or not. Still, if there are problems at the military hospitals that can be fixed, they should be fixed.

[Texsox]

Whenever government run health care is debated, nay sayers point to the conditions in military hospitals as proof the government can not run a health system. So the issue has been around for a very long time. One reason our country has gotten stronger through the years is fixing things when the public* gets excited. This may very well be one of those times.

 

*I can't type public without hearing Ron White

[southsider2k5]

Whenever government run health care is debated, nay sayers point to the conditions in military hospitals as proof the government can not run a health system. So the issue has been around for a very long time. One reason our country has gotten stronger through the years is fixing things when the public* gets excited. This may very well be one of those times.

 

*I can't type public without hearing Ron White

 

With a Dad who is a 20% disabled Vietnam vet, I can attest to the 3 year waiting list for knee replacement surgery, and other insane delays.

[Texsox]

With a Dad who is a 20% disabled Vietnam vet, I can attest to the 3 year waiting list for knee replacement surgery, and other insane delays.

 

I went through this with my Uncle. Near as I saw, the treatment was only slightly better then what public aid recipients would receive. I'm not certain where the treatment could fall. We could make it better than private insurance, but can't afford it. But it should be closer, and much better than Medicaid. IMHO. I'd much rather spend tax dollars on veterans.

[Rex Kickass]

VA treatment of wounded vets has been a shame for a long long time. If it takes political posturing to improve treatment conditions, bring on the posturing.

[bmags]

yay my new senator doing something i respect.

 

plus as a j-student, i'd like to think if i wrote an article like that it would make a quick difference.

[Balta1701]

I would respect the bill more if it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to an article. Especially since Obama is running already, anything he does will be looked at as an attempt to win votes, whether it is or not. Still, if there are problems at the military hospitals that can be fixed, they should be fixed.

So, here's the question though; how many people actually knew this was a problem before the WaPo stories hit over the weekend? It seemed like the authors basically had to sneak into the buildings to get around the Walter Reed media control people, Congress for the last few years has clearly had no urge to hold hearings or oversight on this sort of thing, the Dems have had power barely a month and a half and can only do so much so fast...at least they're attempting to act now that someone pointed out the problem.

[Texsox]

Dems have had power barely a month and a half and can only do so much so fast...at least they're attempting to act now that someone pointed out the problem.

 

I gotta call a foul. Just because the Dems did not have a majority doesn't mean they were powerless. Just like I do not want the GOP to just sit back sucking their thumbs and allowing the Dems to do whatever they please. Bring forth legislation, investigate, continue to work for the people who elected you. I will continue to expect my Senators to work on behalf of the great state of Texas, even though they are the minority party.

[Balta1701]

I gotta call a foul. Just because the Dems did not have a majority doesn't mean they were powerless. Just like I do not want the GOP to just sit back sucking their thumbs and allowing the Dems to do whatever they please. Bring forth legislation, investigate, continue to work for the people who elected you. I will continue to expect my Senators to work on behalf of the great state of Texas, even though they are the minority party.

If they can't get documents and access and have no subpoena power, there's very, very little they can do. Henry Waxman is probably the best in the business at turning FOIA requests into reports on how corrupt the one-party system was, but without the ability to compel the turning over of documents, there was only so much investigation that was possible.

 

It's a shame on all sides that conditions were allowed to worsen to the point where they are now. But at least to my eyes, the buck stops at the people in charge, and those weren't on my side of the aisle. 6 months from now, when things like this get uncovered, then I'll think it's appropriate to blame the leadership for not doing their job and uncovering it, but I think this is a direct result of the fact that the previous Congress was adamantly opposed to doing any oversight on any issue that could hurt the President.

[Texsox]

If they can't get documents and access and have no subpoena power, there's very, very little they can do. Henry Waxman is probably the best in the business at turning FOIA requests into reports on how corrupt the one-party system was, but without the ability to compel the turning over of documents, there was only so much investigation that was possible.

 

It's a shame on all sides that conditions were allowed to worsen to the point where they are now. But at least to my eyes, the buck stops at the people in charge, and those weren't on my side of the aisle. 6 months from now, when things like this get uncovered, then I'll think it's appropriate to blame the leadership for not doing their job and uncovering it, but I think this is a direct result of the fact that the previous Congress was adamantly opposed to doing any oversight on any issue that could hurt the President.

 

 

The problems in the VA Hospitals go back a long time. Certainly to Clinton's term, actually all the way back to Johnson that I can think of.

 

I just don't like hiding behind we're not in charge. B.S. if reporters can get the information, Congress can as well.

[Balta1701]

Slightly related topic, the Pentagon is unsurprisingly cracking down on the soldiers at Walter Reed who helped expose the problems there. Army Times.

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

 

“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

 

It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.

 

Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.

 

They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

 

The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.

 

As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.

 

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.

[Texsox]

[Balta1701]

The Washington Post is staying with this story, despite the media blackout.

Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect

Complaints About Walter Reed Were Voiced for Years

 

Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

 

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.

 

Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, said he ran into Kiley in the foyer of the command headquarters at Walter Reed shortly after the Iraq war began and told him that "there are people in the barracks who are drinking themselves to death and people who are sharing drugs and people not getting the care they need."

...

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

[southsider2k5]

I am still shocked that people seem to be hearing this for the first time. Maybe its having a Dad for vet, but this stuff has been around for years. Now the rest of the stories are starting to hit the media as well. Its sad, but veterans in this country get treated like crap, and have for a long time, by tons of different groups. Hopefully this starts to turn the tide.

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0401394_pf.html

 

'It Is Just Not Walter Reed'

Soldiers Share Troubling Stories Of Military Health Care Across U.S.

 

 

Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, Calif., to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own VA hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.

 

"It is just not Walter Reed," Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. "The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again."

 

Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.

 

The official reaction to the revelations at Walter Reed has been swift, and it has exposed the potential political costs of ignoring Oliva's 24.3 million comrades -- America's veterans -- many of whom are among the last standing supporters of the Iraq war. In just two weeks, the Army secretary has been fired, a two-star general relieved of command and two special commissions appointed; congressional subcommittees are lining up for hearings, the first today at Walter Reed; and the president, in his weekly radio address, redoubled promises to do right by the all-volunteer force, 1.5 million of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

But much deeper has been the reaction outside Washington, including from many of the 600,000 new veterans who left the service after Iraq and Afghanistan. Wrenching questions have dominated blogs, talk shows, editorial cartoons, VFW spaghetti suppers and the solitary late nights of soldiers and former soldiers who fire off e-mails to reporters, members of Congress and the White House -- looking, finally, for attention and solutions.

 

Several forces converged to create this intense reaction. A new Democratic majority in Congress is willing to criticize the administration. Senior retired officers pounded the Pentagon with sharp questions about what was going on. Up to 40 percent of the troops fighting in Iraq are National Guard members and reservists -- "our neighbors," said Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded. "It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point," he said. On top of all that, America had believed the government's assurances that the wounded were being taken care of. "The country is embarrassed" to know otherwise, Glasser said.

 

The scandal has reverberated through generations of veterans. "It's been a potent reminder of past indignities and past traumas," said Thomas A. Mellman, a professor of psychiatry at Howard University who specializes in post-traumatic stress and has worked in Veterans Affairs hospitals. "The fact that it's been responded to so quickly has created mixed feelings -- gratification, but obvious regret and anger that such attention wasn't given before, especially for Vietnam veterans."

 

Across the country, some military quarters for wounded outpatients are in bad shape, according to interviews, Government Accountability Office reports and transcripts of congressional testimony. The mold, mice and rot of Walter Reed's Building 18 compose a familiar scenario for many soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan who were shipped to their home posts for treatment. Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.

 

Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.

 

"My concern is for the others, who don't have a parent or someone to fight for them," Karen said. "These are just kids. Who would have ever looked in on my son?"

 

Capt. Leslie Haines was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for treatment in 2004 after being flown out of Iraq. "The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," he said. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."

 

Hundreds of soldiers contacted The Washington Post through telephone calls and e-mails, many of them describing their bleak existence in Medhold.

 

From Fort Campbell in Kentucky: "There were yellow signs on the door stating our barracks had asbestos."

 

From Fort Bragg in North Carolina: "They are on my [expletive] like a diaper. . . . there are people getting chewed up everyday."

 

From Fort Dix in New Jersey: "Scare tactics are used against soldiers who will write sworn statement to assist fellow soldiers for their medical needs."

 

From Fort Irwin in California: "Most of us have had to sign waivers where we understand that the housing we were in failed to meet minimal government standards."

 

Soldiers back from Iraq worry that their psychological problems are only beginning to surface. "The hammer is just coming down, I can feel it," said retired Maj. Anthony DeStefano of New Jersey, describing his descent into post-traumatic stress and the Army's propensity to medicate rather than talk. When he returned home, Army doctors put him on the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. "That way, you can screw their lights out and they won't feel a thing," he said of patients like himself. "By the time they understand what is going on, they are through the Board and stuck with an unfavorable percentage of disability" benefits.

 

Nearly 64,000 of the more than 184,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have sought VA health care have been diagnosed with potential symptoms of post-traumatic stress, drug abuse or other mental disorders as of the end of June, according to the latest report by the Veterans Health Administration. Of those, nearly 30,000 have possible post-traumatic stress disorder, the report said.

 

VA hospitals are also receiving a surge of new patients after more than five years of combat. At the sprawling James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., Spec. Roberto Reyes Jr. lies nearly immobile and unable to talk. Once a strapping member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Reyes got too close to an improvised explosive device in Iraq and was sent to Walter Reed, where doctors did all they could before shipping him to the VA for the remainder of his life. A cloudy bag of urine hangs from his wheelchair. His mother and his aunt are constant bedside companions; Reyes, 25, likes for them to get two inches from his face, so he can pull on their noses with the few fingers he can still control.

 

Maria Mendez, his aunt, complained about the hospital staff. "They fight over who's going to have to give him a bath -- in front of him!" she said. Reyes suffered third-degree burns on his leg when a nurse left him in a shower unattended. He was unable to move himself away from the scalding water. His aunt found out only later, when she saw the burns.

 

Among the most aggrieved are veterans who have lived with the open secret of substandard, underfunded care in the 154 VA hospitals and hundreds of community health centers around the country. They vented their fury in thousands of e-mails and phone calls and in chat rooms.

 

"I have been trying to get someone, ANYBODY, to look into my allegations" at the Dayton VA, pleaded Darrell Hampton.

 

"I'm calling from Summerville, South Carolina, and I have a story to tell," began Horace Williams, 62. "I'm a Marine from the Vietnam era, and it took me 20 years to get the benefits I was entitled to."

 

The VA has a backlog of 400,000 benefit claims, including many concerning mental health. Vietnam vets whose post-traumatic stress has been triggered by images of war in Iraq are flooding the system for help and are being turned away.

 

For years, politicians have received letters from veterans complaining of bad care across the country. Last week, Walter Reed was besieged by members of Congress who toured the hospital and Building 18 to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions. Many of them have been visiting patients in the hospital for years, but now they are issuing news releases decrying the mistreatment of the wounded.

 

Sgt. William A. Jones had recently written to his Arizona senators complaining about abuse at the VA hospital in Phoenix. He had written to the president before that. "Not one person has taken the time to respond in any manner," Jones said in an e-mail.

 

From Ray Oliva, the distraught 70-year-old vet from Kelseyville, Calif., came this: "I wrote a letter to Senators Feinstein and Boxer a few years ago asking why I had to wear Hospital gowns that had holes in them and torn and why some of the Vets had to ask for beds that had good mattress instead of broken and old. Wheel chairs old and tired and the list goes on and on. I never did get a response."

 

Oliva lives in a house on a tranquil lake. His hearing is shot from working on fighter jets on the flight line. "Gun plumbers," as they called themselves, didn't get earplugs in the late 1950s, when Oliva served with the Air Force. His hands had been burned from touching the skin of the aircraft. All is minor compared with what he later saw at the VA hospital where he received care.

 

"I sat with guys who'd served in 'Nam," Oliva said. "We had terrible problems with the VA. But we were all so powerless to do anything about them. Just like Walter Reed."

[southsider2k5]

I am still shocked that people seem to be hearing this for the first time. Maybe its having a Dad for vet, but this stuff has been around for years. Now the rest of the stories are starting to hit the media as well. Its sad, but veterans in this country get treated like crap, and have for a long time, by tons of different groups. Hopefully this starts to turn the tide.

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0401394_pf.html

 

'It Is Just Not Walter Reed'

Soldiers Share Troubling Stories Of Military Health Care Across U.S.

 

 

Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, Calif., to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own VA hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.

 

"It is just not Walter Reed," Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. "The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again."

 

Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.

 

The official reaction to the revelations at Walter Reed has been swift, and it has exposed the potential political costs of ignoring Oliva's 24.3 million comrades -- America's veterans -- many of whom are among the last standing supporters of the Iraq war. In just two weeks, the Army secretary has been fired, a two-star general relieved of command and two special commissions appointed; congressional subcommittees are lining up for hearings, the first today at Walter Reed; and the president, in his weekly radio address, redoubled promises to do right by the all-volunteer force, 1.5 million of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

But much deeper has been the reaction outside Washington, including from many of the 600,000 new veterans who left the service after Iraq and Afghanistan. Wrenching questions have dominated blogs, talk shows, editorial cartoons, VFW spaghetti suppers and the solitary late nights of soldiers and former soldiers who fire off e-mails to reporters, members of Congress and the White House -- looking, finally, for attention and solutions.

 

Several forces converged to create this intense reaction. A new Democratic majority in Congress is willing to criticize the administration. Senior retired officers pounded the Pentagon with sharp questions about what was going on. Up to 40 percent of the troops fighting in Iraq are National Guard members and reservists -- "our neighbors," said Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded. "It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point," he said. On top of all that, America had believed the government's assurances that the wounded were being taken care of. "The country is embarrassed" to know otherwise, Glasser said.

 

The scandal has reverberated through generations of veterans. "It's been a potent reminder of past indignities and past traumas," said Thomas A. Mellman, a professor of psychiatry at Howard University who specializes in post-traumatic stress and has worked in Veterans Affairs hospitals. "The fact that it's been responded to so quickly has created mixed feelings -- gratification, but obvious regret and anger that such attention wasn't given before, especially for Vietnam veterans."

 

Across the country, some military quarters for wounded outpatients are in bad shape, according to interviews, Government Accountability Office reports and transcripts of congressional testimony. The mold, mice and rot of Walter Reed's Building 18 compose a familiar scenario for many soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan who were shipped to their home posts for treatment. Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.

 

Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.

 

"My concern is for the others, who don't have a parent or someone to fight for them," Karen said. "These are just kids. Who would have ever looked in on my son?"

 

Capt. Leslie Haines was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for treatment in 2004 after being flown out of Iraq. "The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," he said. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."

 

Hundreds of soldiers contacted The Washington Post through telephone calls and e-mails, many of them describing their bleak existence in Medhold.

 

From Fort Campbell in Kentucky: "There were yellow signs on the door stating our barracks had asbestos."

 

From Fort Bragg in North Carolina: "They are on my [expletive] like a diaper. . . . there are people getting chewed up everyday."

 

From Fort Dix in New Jersey: "Scare tactics are used against soldiers who will write sworn statement to assist fellow soldiers for their medical needs."

 

From Fort Irwin in California: "Most of us have had to sign waivers where we understand that the housing we were in failed to meet minimal government standards."

 

Soldiers back from Iraq worry that their psychological problems are only beginning to surface. "The hammer is just coming down, I can feel it," said retired Maj. Anthony DeStefano of New Jersey, describing his descent into post-traumatic stress and the Army's propensity to medicate rather than talk. When he returned home, Army doctors put him on the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. "That way, you can screw their lights out and they won't feel a thing," he said of patients like himself. "By the time they understand what is going on, they are through the Board and stuck with an unfavorable percentage of disability" benefits.

 

Nearly 64,000 of the more than 184,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have sought VA health care have been diagnosed with potential symptoms of post-traumatic stress, drug abuse or other mental disorders as of the end of June, according to the latest report by the Veterans Health Administration. Of those, nearly 30,000 have possible post-traumatic stress disorder, the report said.

 

VA hospitals are also receiving a surge of new patients after more than five years of combat. At the sprawling James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., Spec. Roberto Reyes Jr. lies nearly immobile and unable to talk. Once a strapping member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Reyes got too close to an improvised explosive device in Iraq and was sent to Walter Reed, where doctors did all they could before shipping him to the VA for the remainder of his life. A cloudy bag of urine hangs from his wheelchair. His mother and his aunt are constant bedside companions; Reyes, 25, likes for them to get two inches from his face, so he can pull on their noses with the few fingers he can still control.

 

Maria Mendez, his aunt, complained about the hospital staff. "They fight over who's going to have to give him a bath -- in front of him!" she said. Reyes suffered third-degree burns on his leg when a nurse left him in a shower unattended. He was unable to move himself away from the scalding water. His aunt found out only later, when she saw the burns.

 

Among the most aggrieved are veterans who have lived with the open secret of substandard, underfunded care in the 154 VA hospitals and hundreds of community health centers around the country. They vented their fury in thousands of e-mails and phone calls and in chat rooms.

 

"I have been trying to get someone, ANYBODY, to look into my allegations" at the Dayton VA, pleaded Darrell Hampton.

 

"I'm calling from Summerville, South Carolina, and I have a story to tell," began Horace Williams, 62. "I'm a Marine from the Vietnam era, and it took me 20 years to get the benefits I was entitled to."

 

The VA has a backlog of 400,000 benefit claims, including many concerning mental health. Vietnam vets whose post-traumatic stress has been triggered by images of war in Iraq are flooding the system for help and are being turned away.

 

For years, politicians have received letters from veterans complaining of bad care across the country. Last week, Walter Reed was besieged by members of Congress who toured the hospital and Building 18 to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions. Many of them have been visiting patients in the hospital for years, but now they are issuing news releases decrying the mistreatment of the wounded.

 

Sgt. William A. Jones had recently written to his Arizona senators complaining about abuse at the VA hospital in Phoenix. He had written to the president before that. "Not one person has taken the time to respond in any manner," Jones said in an e-mail.

 

From Ray Oliva, the distraught 70-year-old vet from Kelseyville, Calif., came this: "I wrote a letter to Senators Feinstein and Boxer a few years ago asking why I had to wear Hospital gowns that had holes in them and torn and why some of the Vets had to ask for beds that had good mattress instead of broken and old. Wheel chairs old and tired and the list goes on and on. I never did get a response."

 

Oliva lives in a house on a tranquil lake. His hearing is shot from working on fighter jets on the flight line. "Gun plumbers," as they called themselves, didn't get earplugs in the late 1950s, when Oliva served with the Air Force. His hands had been burned from touching the skin of the aircraft. All is minor compared with what he later saw at the VA hospital where he received care.

 

"I sat with guys who'd served in 'Nam," Oliva said. "We had terrible problems with the VA. But we were all so powerless to do anything about them. Just like Walter Reed."

[Balta1701]

I am still shocked that people seem to be hearing this for the first time. Maybe its having a Dad for vet, but this stuff has been around for years. Now the rest of the stories are starting to hit the media as well. Its sad, but veterans in this country get treated like crap, and have for a long time, by tons of different groups. Hopefully this starts to turn the tide.

The only part of this story I'd heard about were the very long waits that could build up for the VA facilities, but they did a pretty good job of keepign the conditions at the facilities for returning soldiers out of the public eye, at least as far as I can tell. I mean, how many hundreds of photo ops have political leaders had with wounded troops at Walter Reed in other buildings since 9/11? I'll admit some moderate surprise that they were able to keep the other buildings out of the public eye when there's that much media on the grounds.

[EvilMonkey]

This situation is a first-look at socailized healthcare in America. Enjoy!

[Balta1701]

This situation is a first-look at socailized healthcare in America. Enjoy!

I don't think this is the issue to start off on the government-run medice issue, but now that I've learned a bit more about it, I think it may be worth pointing out that there are 2 distinct systems here; the Walter Reed medical center, and as far as I can tell the majority of the centers that are having the severe issues with being run-down are not actually VA centers; the VA operates independently of the Army.

 

Walter Reed, and the Army community hospitals, are not VA centers; they are run by the army. And interestingly enough, they are in fact not run directly by the army any more either: the operation of several of these facilities, including Walter Reed specifically, was outsourced in a $120 million or so contract to a company called IAP services...which is run by a former Halliburton exec, and which was one of the companies that couldn't deliver ice to New Orleans after Katrina.

 

The main issue with the VA right now is that thanks in no small part to the Iraq war, the number of people who would have been eligible for VA treatment has skyrocketed, but at the same time, the amount of funds available to take care of those folks has not seen a similar increase; therefore, the VA has had to enact strict rules on who is eligible for treatment at their facilities, but that still has not been anywhere near enough to deal with the surge in patients described above.

[kapkomet]

The main issue with the VA right now is that thanks in no small part to the Iraq war, the number of people who would have been eligible for VA treatment has skyrocketed, but at the same time, the amount of funds available to take care of those folks has not seen a similar increase; therefore, the VA has had to enact strict rules on who is eligible for treatment at their facilities, but that still has not been anywhere near enough to deal with the surge in patients described above.

BS. This existed long before the Iraq war. This goes back 20-30 + years to the Vietnam era, when the soldiers coming back were all s*** on and the politicians have turned a blind eye to it for years, both Democrat and Republican. In this case, the Democrats want to add even more gas to the fire that Bush doesn't give a s*** about our troops or their care, and Bush wants to save face. But shame on all of them because it's been this way for years and NOW it's a political s***storm.

 

Maybe, just maybe, this is finally the perfect storm to get it taken care of right this time.

[Texsox]

This situation is a first-look at socailized healthcare in America. Enjoy!

.

 

Two very different programs. One has every voter in America involved, the other has a smaller group paid for by the larger group.

 

I also agree with Kap, this is a bipartisan f***up.

[southsider2k5]

BS. This existed long before the Iraq war.

 

I don't know exactly how far the bad VA hospitals go, but my first hand knowledge of them goes back to my Dad's dealings with them as far back as I can remember, after he was a victim in of a bombing back on his base in Vietnam. He spent six months in hospitals before he was even fit enough to return back to the states, and even then, the level of care he got in the Army meant that as long as he didn't raise he arm above his head, his shoulder would stay in its socket. Anything more than that, and it would dislocate. He literally came back to the states, and paid out of his own pocket to have his shoulder fixed in private practice because the army didn't see the problem with it. Throw in some decent, but not major, Agent Orange after-effects, and he has seen a few VA hospitals, as have I when I went with him to appointments. He is too this day considered a 20% disabled vet because of the injuries he endured over there, and has been in and out of VA hospitals over the course of 35+ years, especially the last 25 or so as he became physically unable to work in his mid 30's. (partially due to those injuries, and partially due to some bad luck, and another part dumb decesion making) This is not a new thing, dispite the press just latching on to it. Ask any of the 25 million or so vets who are out there, if they have ever had the misfortune of setting foot into a VA hospital, and prepare to be incredibly depressed.

[Texsox]

Being the bleeding heart around here, I don't think there is such as thing as too much we can do for those who were injured in the defense or offense of this country. We can do better, a whole lot better. I'd like to see the health care as a seperate budget, out from the defense budget, more in the entitlement and public aid arenas. We should never have the military in a position to choose between a cool new, and necessary, billion dollar jet and thousands of soldiers getting the medical care they deserve.

[kapkomet]

I'd like to see the health care as a seperate budget, out from the defense budget, more in the entitlement and public aid arenas.

That's an interesting thought, but I doubt it will happen.

[Texsox]

That's an interesting thought, but I doubt it will happen.

 

I am certain I haven't thought of some problems. I wouldn't want to transfer this to civilian control, but I'd like their budget separate. I think in that way, even the hardcore small military people, could get behind the decent, fair thing to do.