Bill to improve conditions at Military Hospitals

[NorthSideSox72]

I've spoken with a couple people who are ex-military, and it does seem that conditions at VA hospitals have been bad for some time now. But I think its interesting, we all (myself included) complain about our politicians AND the press here a lot, and how things are politicized for someone's gain. In this case, though, the fact that the bill was brought up and the articles were written is an example of how the political system and the free press actually worked in a positive way. Politics resulted in good - what a concept.

[southsider2k5]

I've spoken with a couple people who are ex-military, and it does seem that conditions at VA hospitals have been bad for some time now. But I think its interesting, we all (myself included) complain about our politicians AND the press here a lot, and how things are politicized for someone's gain. In this case, though, the fact that the bill was brought up and the articles were written is an example of how the political system and the free press actually worked in a positive way. Politics resulted in good - what a concept.

 

Well its good that things might get fixed now... Where were these people over the last few decades? This has been going on for a long time, and no one said a damned thing about it. That being said, hopefully they can get it right, but I am not holding my breath.

[kapkomet]

Well its good that things might get fixed now... Where were these people over the last few decades? This has been going on for a long time, and no one said a damned thing about it. That being said, hopefully they can get it right, but I am not holding my breath.

That was exactly my point about 5 or 6 posts ago.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well its good that things might get fixed now... Where were these people over the last few decades? This has been going on for a long time, and no one said a damned thing about it. That being said, hopefully they can get it right, but I am not holding my breath.

I'm not saying it was good before... just pointing out that good came from a political machination.

[Texsox]

There are lots of problems in our world and we can't solve them all at the same time. Sometimes it takes the problem getting just a little worse. Sometimes people have to die.

 

As a society, we can't beat ourselves up for not tackling this problem much, much, sooner. Overall, from injury to long term treatment, we have done much better. Part of the problem, is actually a very good thing, we are saving a lot more soldiers in the field who would have died in Korea and back.

[Balta1701]

Since we're talking specifically about issues with the VA, I'd like to hear people's reaction to this recent RAND Corp. study of health care @ the VA compared with other varieities of private health care in the U.S., which seems to show dissimilar results in cases where people actually get in to receive treatment.

Using indicators from RAND’s Quality Assessment Tools system, RAND researchers analyzed the medical records of 596 VA patients and 992 non-VA patients from across the country. The patients were randomly selected males aged 35 and older. Based on 294 health indicators in 15 categories of care, they found that overall, VA patients were more likely than patients in the national sample to receive recommended care. In particular, the VA patients received significantly better care for depression, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension. The VA also performed consistently better across the spectrum of care, including screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. The only exception to the pattern of better care in VA facilities was care for acute conditions, for which the two samples were similar.

[Texsox]

Since we're talking specifically about issues with the VA, I'd like to hear people's reaction to this recent RAND Corp. study of health care @ the VA compared with other varieities of private health care in the U.S., which seems to show dissimilar results in cases where people actually get in to receive treatment.

There are some advantages in having a consistent health care provider. I also believe it is easier for VA Doctors to prescribe treatments than HMO and Private insurance paid providers.

[Balta1701]

CQ.

Senior Republicans who knew about problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center while their party controlled Congress insist they did all they could to prod the Pentagon to fix them.

 

But C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he stopped short of going public with the hospital’s problems to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Young and Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., the former chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, both acknowledged in interviews that they were aware of patient care problems at Walter Reed long before The Washington Post exposed them two weeks ago.

 

At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Young detailed his efforts to assist patients at Walter Reed during visits he or his wife made to the hospital as early as 2003. He described repeatedly confronting the hospital’s then commander, Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, about patients who, they discovered, had received poor care.

 

Young said his wife, Beverly, found one Walter Reed patient lying in his hospital bed without sheets or blankets, having soiled himself. Another, who suffered from a battlefield brain injury, had fallen out of his bed three times, even after Young had told Kiley about the problem, the lawmaker said. And he said a third patient, who had an aneurysm, died after a respiratory therapist ignored family warnings about the patient’s fragile condition and treated him anyway.

 

“We got in Gen. Kiley’s face on a regular basis,” Young said, adding that he even contacted the commander of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda in the hopes of getting better care there for the patient with the aneurysm, though doctors at Walter Reed declined to transfer him.

 

“What else do you want me to do? I am not going to go into a hospital and push my way into a medical situation,” Young said after the hearing.

 

...

Young said he used his role as an appropriator to push to fund a new lab at Walter Reed and a new phone system at Fort Carson so patients could more easily make appointments.

 

But he said he purposely opted to bring concerns about individual patients’ care privately to the attention of Walter Reed commanders, rather than wield his clout as an Appropriations subcommittee chairman.

 

“We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war,” Young said.

[southsider2k5]

Another, who suffered from a battlefield brain injury, had fallen out of his bed three times, even after Young had told Kiley about the problem, the lawmaker said.

 

One note here... It is now pretty much illegal to restrain a patient in any way, unless there is a s***load of consents given, and even then, most places will not allow it, unless the patient is a danger to others or/and himself. Falling down is not a good enough reason to restrain someone. Short of having someone posted at the bed, there is not a damned thing you can do about it. This is a direct result of people suing nursing homes and hospitals for using restraints on people's loved ones.

[southsider2k5]

Well my dad just had a complete knee replacement done at the VA in Indy. The surgery was an adventure, because he had such awful damage for so long, what should have been an hour and a half surgery took almost seven hours because they actually had to realign his leg bones first, before they could take care of the knee, because the knee was so bad that they had gone out of kilter.

 

The big thing was he remarked how it was the best VA visit he has ever had, and that goes back to 1969. He said the staff was incredibly nice and helpful, and they had a ton of volunteers in the hospital, doing all kinds of "we appreciate our veterans" kind of stuff. Hopefully this means that finally making fiascos like the care of our veterans public, is finally turning the system around a little bit.