skippy the bush kangaroo

Monday, March 05, 2007

more hospital problems for vets found

via make them accountable we find an ed&pub report that tells us the washpost is on a roll searching out problems for hospitalized vets:

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.

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posted by skippy at 8:29 AM |

1 Comments:

Many, many posts about the military healthcare system filaures at Universal Health. Unfortunately, this tracks back to Rumsfeld and Bush with Weightman as a scapegoat. It also is frightingly clear that the professional nursing shortage lies at the heart of what's wrong and what's missing in the healthcare of the active military, as well as the veterans in the VA system.
Trauma rehabilitation is a clinical nursing specialty, and it's the standard for care, not the gold standard.
commented by Anonymous N=1, 12:58 PM PST  

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