Be all you can be, give all you can give, get the worst care there is

[shesulsa]

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.

Link to full article.

This is absolutely abominable.

 

[Kacey]

This is absolutely abominable.

It is abominable. There is no other word for it. The title says it all; we owe all soldiers and veterans the best we can provide - not the lowest bidder.

 

[tellner]

Yes, but there's money to be made. How can you let a little discomfort for some Little People get in the way of privatization and the pursuit of boundless profits by contractors suckling off the Federal teat? :barf:

And who do they put in charge of Walter Reed? Kiley, who ignored the problem for two mother-loving years.

Love or hate Clinton, on his watch FEMA and the VA were brought up to scratch. Veterans had to jump through paper hoops, but they got competent treatment in decent surroundings. When disaster struck FEMA was there with the men, material and money to get the job done. They did their job efficiently and on time. They were responsive to the people. The current bunch of let-them-eat-cake looters only care about extracting the greatest amount of money from our grandchildren and delivering the least possible in return.

"Support the troops" doesn't mean "Let them lie forgotten in their own urine while rats nibble at their bandages." :soapbox:

 

[theletch1]

Love or hate Clinton, on his watch FEMA and the VA were brought up to scratch. Veterans had to jump through paper hoops, but they got competent treatment in decent surroundings.

Really? That's not how I remember the VA in the mid 1990s at all when I left the USMC needing surgery for a boxers fracture in my right hand. During that time frame bodies were showing up on the grounds of the local VA dead of exposure after delirius patients had been allowed to wander from the wards in the middle of winter. I never did get the needed surgery on my hand because of a six month wait list. It's bad now, sure, but I've not seen any difference now from before Clinton or during Clinton either. Want socialized medicine in America folks? Just check out the VA system and that's what you're looking at.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

My favorite is how they are trying to redefine stress to get out of dealing with the tens of thousands of cases of PTSD coming out of Iraq.

 

[terryl965]

It is a sad day in America when we do not care enough about the elderly and or military

 

[Catalyst]

I think there is an unwritten pact between the people of the United States and the brave men and women in our Military:

1.) We will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary. We will only ask you to risk your life when it's the last resort; there is no other alternative. We will give you all the supports and the finest equipment, training, etc. that is necessary for you to acheive victory.

2.) If anything happens to you, we will take care of you and your family. (You were brave enough to risk your health, safety, life and your family's future while protecting us, it's the least we can do).

Somewhere along the line, these 2 concepts were forgotten by a bunch of clowns in Washington D.C.

 

[jetboatdeath]

Sad yes new nope. I remember when I was in the army in Germany. When we got hurt we would never go to the base hospital, we would always go to the civilian one. The way we saw it was if this army doctor was a good one he wouldn’t be doing it for the army pay. So saying this is something new is a farce. I was also in during the Clinton years and not to make this more political than it already is his cuts and base closers did more harm than good. Military health care is a joke. An example, you can not get out of the military (or couldn’t) until you had a dental exam, our base had one dentist that was just doing the final exams on these soldiers. You could go request an appointment but it was at least 6 months out and was just for an exam, 6 more months for a fix. If you have ever had an impacted tooth you know that is not going to cut it. So we went to civilian dentists. I just hope that they figure something out but, I just hope they don’t blame it on one person because it is far deeper than one person or one administration.