Since 03-11-07
Neglect of
vets sickening: Mass. Dems rush to mend
Since 03-11-07
From:
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Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 2:39 PM
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Subject: Neglect of vets sickening: Mass. Dems rush to mend
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=187327
Neglect of vets sickening: Mass. Dems rush to mend
By Wayne Woodlief
Boston Herald Columnist
Friday, March 9, 2007
The stories you read and hear about the dreadful neglect and maltreatment of
wounded veterans at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center are bad enough: the
mold, mice droppings and cockroaches in outpatients’ living quarters. The Army
sergeant, who lost an eye and suffered grievous brain damage and often was still
disoriented, being handed a map and left to find the outpatient barracks on the
sprawling grounds on his own. Suicide attempts. Patients and their families
often left unguided through a picky, sometimes overwhelming bureaucracy.
Yet, as horrific as those stories are as they emerge from a Washington Post
investigation and congressional testimony, they may only be the first glimpse
inside a disgracefully-run system. Its sins demand a far more vigorous shakeup
than we’ve seen.
Sure, the secretary of the Army and the general who commanded Walter Reed
for the past six months have been forced to resign. But Army Surgeon General
Kevin C. Kiley, who headed the hospital during some of its worst neglect and
ignored abuses taking place literally in front of his face, should go, too.
Kiley testified on Monday before a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. John
F. Tierney (D-Salem). And when he was reminded that he had lived just across the
street from the infamous moldy and mice-infested Building 18, he said,
stunningly, that his job description didn’t “include inspecting barracks.” How
can a man with that mentality fix a system he helped break?
Congressional leaders believe the problems run well beyond Walter Reed. And
Tierney and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy aim to find out where. They won’t wait for
the new Bush-appointed commission headed by Bob Dole and Donna Shalala to come
up with a report the president might well ignore.
Tierney told me, “We don’t stop here. We’re going out to examine some of the
11 other institutions where soldiers from the battlefield come in for acute care
and then outpatient treatment. We want to make sure their programs don’t reflect
Building 18 at Walter Reed and that veterans get case workers to help them
through the red tape.
“We’re going to have all these officials back within 45 days for a report
card on what they’ve done and what still needs to be done. Can’t take General
Kiley at his word. If you don’t acknowledge that something has gone awry, how
will you summon the passion and energy to correct it?”
Kennedy, too, is all over this one. He said President Bush failed in a 2003
promise to provide “excellent health care to anybody injured on the
battlefield.” Kennedy and Tierney have started hotlines to receive complaints.
Kennedy’s office already has helped veterans - men who lost arms, were paralyzed
or needed psychiatric treatment - yet who were “falling through the cracks” or
overwhelmed by paperwork.
These hearings show why it’s so important to have proper oversight on the
Bush administration (Republicans provided almost none). In response to them,
several vets wrote wrenching letters to The New York Times.
Army Staff Sgt. Christopher K. Donis said that in 2005, at Walter Reed, he and
other wounded GIs faced “Third-World triage,” understaffed treatment (one
soldier went into shock after seeing the muscle and bones in his own open leg
wound, yet had to “scream in horror for the better part of an hour with no
doctor or psychologist in sight”) and confusion.
Craig Phillips, a Vietnam vet, said “Walter Reed was a huge problem then as
it is now. . . It’s important that we not make the same mistakes we did in the
1960s: long tours of duty leading to fatigue and substandard or no medical care
for the injured in body, mind and spirit.”
As Kennedy said, “Our soldiers and their families must know we will fight as
hard for them at home as they fought for us overseas.”
Let’s hope George Bush has learned that lesson.
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)