the panel concluded there was inadequate understanding of how to diagnose and treat the brain injuries that have become a signature of the Iraq war, where thousands of troops have been wounded by improvised explosive devices, and the mental effects of long exposure to the constant threat of attack.

“We believe there is a need for greater and better coordinated research in this area,” he said.

Didn’t the meathead cut funding for this research?

From the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON, April 11 - An independent panel assessing dilapidated facilities and red tape for wounded Iraq war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Wednesday issued a sweeping indictment of leadership failures, inadequate training and staffing shortages.

The panel, headed by two former secretaries of the Army, Togo D. West Jr. and John O. Marsh Jr., found that a high standard of care for troops when they were first evacuated from war zones and hospitalized fell apart when they became outpatients, with a “breakdown in health services” and “compassion fatigue” on the part of overworked staff members.

“Leadership at Walter Reed should have been aware of poor living conditions and administrative hurdles and failed to place proper priority on solutions,” the panel said in a summary of its draft report released at a meeting at Walter Reed.

The report called the current system for assessing soldiers- disabilities “extremely cumbersome, inconsistent, and confusing,” saying it must be “completely overhauled.” It called for the creation of a “center of excellence” on treatment, training and research on two conditions suffered by thousands of troops in Iraq: traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now that warmer weather is arriving, the giant tent that was a winter home for 150 veterans is being packed away.

“For most of us, it’s back on the streets,” says Marvin Britton, a former military policeman who’s been crisscrossing the country since leaving the Army in 1971 following three combat tours in Vietnam.

The battered tent, pitched on a Navy parking lot, is reflective of a problem that almost certainly will worsen as more troops come home from Iraq and Afghanistan and leave active duty - there just aren’t enough beds for vets who end up homeless.

“We all feel like we are fighting against a clock,” said Toni Reinis, who runs New Directions Inc., a Los Angeles substance abuse center providing residential and outpatient care for homeless vets.

No one knows for sure how many homeless there are - estimates vary from hundreds of thousands to millions.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there are about 195,000 homeless veterans on any given night. Last fall, the VA estimated a shortfall of 9,600 “transitional” beds for those vets, accommodations intended to serve as a stepping stone from the streets to independent living.

The VA has secured funding for up to 1,800 beds to be added by the end of this year and is seeking $15 million more from Congress for more beds.

“It’s a very, very high priority,” said Peter Dougherty, the VA’s director of homeless programs.

Until 1987, there were no VA-funded programs catering to homeless vets, but now there are more than 200, Dougherty said. The VA employs about 230 outreach workers who specifically look out for homeless veterans and has increased the number of health clinics.

Dougherty said the agency’s goal is to catch problems early, before veterans end up on the streets. He said it can take up to eight years and sometimes longer for veterans to exhaust options and end up on the streets.

In the last two years the VA has classified 1,049 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as being at risk of homelessness. Of those, about 300 ended up losing their homes.

Former Marine Cordney Gordon was one of those recent vets who found himself without a place to live. After one tour in Afghanistan and two in Iraq, he left the military last year and was on the streets months later.

Anger problems, stress and depression plagued him. After his marriage broke down, Gordon, 30, had nowhere to live, became suicidal and ended up in a VA hospital.

“I really thought my life was over with,” he said.

Escondido-based nonprofit Interfaith Community Services found him at the VA hospital and he now lives in one of the group’s VA-funded apartments with three older veterans.

Transitional beds like Gordon’s generally are provided by nonprofit or community groups like Interfaith. They receive about $30 a day per veteran from the VA, but looking after each veteran can cost them more than $70, said Reinis. The rest is raised through private grants, individual donations, other governmental sources and fundraising events.

More here

From Stars & Stripes

WASHINGTON - Retired Army Sgt. Edward Wade has adjusted to his prosthetic right arm, his nagging foot pain and most of the other ailments caused by a roadside bomb in Iraq three years ago.

What he hasn-t been able to get used to is the lingering fogginess in his mind from the brain injury he sustained in that blast.

“Everything comes out very slow and meaningful now,” the 28-year-old said, with frequent pauses underscoring his frustration. “Everybody else can do more than one thing at once, but I-m forced to just focus on doing one thing at a time.”

Wade and his family joined medical experts on Capitol Hill on Thursday to lobby for more brain injury research, both before troops deploy and after they return home, and for a bill introduced by presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., mandating more attention on the issue.

That legislation would require more access to mental rehabilitation for wounded troops through the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, better training for family members to care for injured loved ones, and more comprehensive monitoring of all troops for signs of brain trauma.

Health officials said the military has done a good job identifying severe brain trauma cases for troops such as Wade, who was in a coma and near death after his February 2004 injury.

But they added that mild cases of head trauma - concussive explosions that don-t leave visible signs of injury, for example - are not being identified or treated, even though those injuries can lead to long-term problems.

“We-ve seen a rise in [troops] who are having seizures, people who are having trouble controlling their thoughts and memories and emotions,” said Dr. Katherine Henry, director of neurology for the New York University School of Medicine.

“For many of these even with mild brain injuries, they may never return to full brain functions.”

Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany launched a brain injury screening program last May, identifying a third of its war-related patients as suffering from some level of mental impairment.

John Melia, executive director of the Wounded Warrior Project, said screening programs are needed for every deployed servicemember, as well as some baseline evaluation of those troops before they leave for comparison.

“We really need the government to step up,” he said. “If this country cannot serve severely injured men and women coming back from this conflict, we need to look at ourselves. Unfortunately, to this point we have failed.”

Wade has received some rehabilitation for his brain injuries, but his wife, Sarah, said they-ve had to fight for every evaluation and treatment session. Army officials pressured him to medically retire, she said, and VA officials aren-t equipped to provide consistent and quick care for the new head trauma cases coming out of the war zone.

“I-ve been his driver, his case manager and his primary caregiver,” she said. “Without me and our families there is no way he could have made the recovery he has. But there are plenty of soldiers who don-t have that help.”

A small Texas business that didn’t meet requirements to qualify as a small business. Wonder who owns this company and who recommended them. Another VAST ripoff…….that led to VAST breaches of veteran’s data!

From Boston.com

It found that the VA put out multiple and inconsistent changes to the contract awarded in 2002 to VAST, a small business joint venture based in Texas, for computer service work aimed at fending off computer hackers.

According to the findings, the VA:

–Spent more than $35 million for equipment and supplies under the contract that it cannot account for.

–Hastily increased the scope of the contract several times, bringing the total value of the contract from $102.8 million to $250 million with little thought or oversight. “This made the contract an open checkbook … with little assurance of price reasonableness and no planned funding.”

–Did not ensure that the joint venture, VAST, met requirements to qualify as a small business.

–Made overpayments on the contract as high as $8.5 million.

–Did not conduct required background investigations on the contract employees.

In addition, because the department spent money on the contract so quickly, it was left temporarily without a defense against hackers after the 10 year contract was allowed to expire prematurely in 2005.

In recent weeks, VA officials have faced a fresh round of bipartisan criticism over data security, with auditors telling Congress that gaping holes persist and that most VA data remains unencrypted.

At a hearing last month, Maureen Regan, counselor to the VA inspector general, said the department still hasn’t fully implemented any of its recommendations from reports dating back to 2001.

The department also hasn’t adopted five key recommendations issued shortly after the massive data breach last May involving veterans. That data was later recovered.

The IG report was publicly released Feb. 26 and first noted Tuesday by McClatchy newspapers.

I sure hope that, in light of the publicity this has received, our veterans will for once and for all get treated better. This situation didn’t happen overnight. It’s been ongoing for years and years. And we need to keep on our representatives and senators until it changes. Timothy Cox…….you gotta go!!!

Reports of a rising death rate and rooms spattered with blood, urine and feces at the Armed Forces Retirement Home prompted the Pentagon yesterday to begin investigating conditions at the veterans facility in Northwest Washington.

The Government Accountability Office warned the Pentagon this week that residents of the home “may be at risk” in light of allegations of severe health-care problems. Residents have been admitted to Walter Reed Army Medical Center with “the most serious type of pressure sores” and, in one case, with maggots in a wound, according to a GAO letter sent to the Defense Department.

Timothy Cox, the chief operating officer for the retirement home, said yesterday that the accusations are “without merit,” and he blasted the GAO for making “inflammatory allegations” without investigating them.

The reports came from medical personnel who treat residents at the historic veterans home, formerly known as the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home. The facility, run by an independent federal agency under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, is home to more than 1,100 enlisted retirees, many of them veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Read more at the Washington Post

Guest post by JoeWo

Dan Quayle is on the Board of Directors for Walter Reed military Hospital.
Check out Dan Quayle’s personal website where he lists his board memberships
and one of them isIAP, the board that runs Walter Reed hospital into the
ground. So the former Vice President under Reagan couldn’t see the
problems.

If they really supported the troops then why are there so many homeless
veterans?

And what about funding the VA and other organizations for the troops?

Tell me how this supports the troops!!!!

This scandal brings back memories of Hurricane Katrina. I think Katrina was an eye opener for many Americans. It was for me. My dislike for this administration turned to pure hatred at that point. Who can ever forget the images of people on roofs, waiting day after day after day for rescue. Who can forget the images of people in the Convention Center or the Superdome. Who can ever forget the people who tried to cross a bridge to safety only to be greeted with shootguns and told they couldn’t cross. Who will ever forget Brownie stating he had no idea there were people at the Convention Center, when the whole world knew. Who will ever forget Bush telling him, “You’re doing a heckuva job Brownie!” Yes…..this was a major eye opener for many of us. It was at that point that I realized that they really don’t care ANYTHING about us. I realized just how very little they care for the underprivledged, the most needy of us.

And now, we have Walter Reed. Another instance of this administration’s total disregard for people in need. Worse yet, soldiers in need. The conditions at Walter Reed are nothing new. This is the “premiere” facility, so you can imagine the conditions at VA hospitals around the country. Many of the hospitals that are out of the limelight have been in deplorable conditions for years. This is the tip of the iceberg. And it’s nothing new. Veterans have been fighting tooth and nail to get benefits and services that are rightfully theirs for a long time. The Iraq and Afghanistan veterans aren’t the first to go through this. The problem transcends political party. It’s been around through Democratic leadership and Republican leadership. The veteran’s struggle is nothing new. It’s why there are so many homeless veterans.

Yesterday on national television, General Kiley stated he had no idea of the problems until he read it in the Washington Post. Yet he still has a job. There continue to be no consequences for the worst of the worst. They are all still in place. And will continue to be in place. Their incompetence is rewarded. So they sit in front of a committee and answer questions. They don’t care. Because for the “chosen”……..there are no consequences.

And I might add, I find it hard to believe that the politicians on that committee were unaware of the problems facing our veterans. Previous government reports that they were privy to told them there were problems. So for them to sit on that panel and act like they had not a shred of evidence that there are problems with our system is a disgrace.

This didn’t happen overnight. Just like they knew the levees in New Orleans were at risk, they knew of the struggles our soldiers have faced for decades. And just like Katrina, Americans will be disgusted and then move on to the next scandal. And the soldiers struggles, just like the struggles of the victims of Hurricane Katrina…… will be forgotten. The problem won’t go away…..but the concern will. Don’t let that happen.

Wounded Warrior Project

Veteran’s Organizations

VA Voluntary Services

VA Heartland Network

VA Facilities Locator

Soldier’s Angels

VetHomes Foundation

Veteran’s Help Network

Please feel free to leave any helpful links in comments!!!

This story is from Friday, so many of you may have seen it already. Bat sent it to me (thank you Bat). I didn’t get it until now because I’ve been MIA. Anywhoo….this is what I’ve been saying. Why does Kiley still have a job? A career? Why doesn’t he get the boot?????? I believe there’s going to be hearings today concerning this. More hearings……so far what’s come out of all these hearings? Just askin……

YESTERDAY THE Post reported that Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley heard years ago from a veterans advocate and even a member of Congress that outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was distressingly squalid and disorganized. That commander proceeded to do little, even though he lives across the street from the outpatient facilities in a spacious Georgian house. Also yesterday, the Army announced that Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, the head of Walter Reed since August, had been relieved of his command. His temporary replacement? None other than Gen. Kiley.

Here’s where the story stops making sense. Much of The Post’s article detailed the abuse by omission that Gen. Kiley, not Gen. Weightman, committed, first as head of Walter Reed, then in his current post as Army surgeon general. Gen. Weightman, who very well might deserve his disgrace, has commanded Walter Reed for only half a year, while Gen. Kiley, now back in charge of Walter Reed, headed the hospital and its outpatient facilities for two years and has led the Army’s medical command since. Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife say they repeatedly told Gen. Kiley about unhealthful conditions in outpatient facilities.

While Gen. Kiley was ignoring Walter Reed’s outpatients, he was assuring Congress that he was doing just the opposite. A staffer for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) told us yesterday that Gen. Kiley told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2005 that the performance of the medical holdover program, which covers 69 of the 76 residents of Building 18, “is a good-news story.” In response to questions Mr. Davis submitted, Gen. Kiley stated, “the Army Surgeon General has made their care the medical treatment facilities’ top priority.” At best, Gen. Kiley was ignorant of the conditions at Walter Reed.

Read more at the Washington Post

Uh huh…… ok. Now when’s Kiley gonna go???????

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday said the secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey, resigned after reports troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were receiving substandard medical treatment at the Army’s top hospital.

Harvey’s resignation came a day after the head of the Walter Reed Medical Center was fired.

“I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed,” Gates said. “Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems.”

Gates said a new permanent head of the medical center would be announced today. That comes as the Bush administration faces questions over a decision to put Army surgeon-general Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, a former commander of Walter Reed, in temporary charge of at the hospital.

Source: Reuters

From the Randi Rhodes website

Thank you Dana Priest, for the work you do.

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.”

“I met guys who weren’t going to appointments because the hospital didn’t even know they were there,” Robinson said. Kiley told him to speak to a sergeant major, a top enlisted officer.

A recent Washington Post series detailed conditions at Walter Reed, including those at Building 18, a dingy former hotel on Georgia Avenue where the wounded were housed among mice, mold, rot and cockroaches.

Continue reading at the Washington Post

This just keeps getting worse and worse. HELLLOOOOOO….CONGRESS…..WAKE THE HELL UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!!

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 28, 2007 10:42:37 EST

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.

Source: ArmyTimes

If you didn’t catch Bob Woodruff’s “To Iraq and Back” last night, I hope they re-air it. A must see. According to James Nicholson, the Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs, the Iraq and Afghanistan wounded numbers are around 200,000……not 23,000. According to him, they were just not prepared for this. Gee, what a surprise…..this administration isn’t much prepared for anything that happens regarding their “war on terror.” At what point does this excuse not hold up any longer???? They interviewed soldiers with head injuries who, when sent home, could not receive proper care because there aren’t any facilities in the areas where they live. It was just so sad. The oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Veterans- Affairs Committee is holding hearings tomorrow regarding the data breaches in the VA department. Maybe they need to look into the care of veterans and the misleading Pentagon numbers of wounded as well!!!

Three deaths and new rule violations prompted action; VA may cut $7 million in funding.

State inspectors said Tuesday that three men died at the Minneapolis Veterans Home after neglect or medication errors last month, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty promptly ordered the Minnesota Department of Health to begin monitoring day-to-day operations of the state-owned nursing home.
The governor’s action was prompted by the deaths, two years of “not so good” inspections that found scores of infractions, and the threat by federal officials on Friday to cut off about $7 million in payments for the care of veterans at the Minneapolis facility, said Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach.

Two of the men who died were in hospice care; one was given penicillin and the other morphine sulfate when they were allergic to the drugs. Investigators said they did not determine whether the medication errors caused the deaths.

Read more about this case here

At Walter Reed, ‘We’re Going to Fix It’
General Says He Will Oversee Repair of Soldiers’ Lodging

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 22, 2007; Page A06

A top Army general vowed yesterday to personally oversee the upgrading of Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Building 18, a dilapidated former hotel that houses wounded soldiers as outpatients.

Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, used terminology similar to that of a military campaign to describe his plan to overhaul the broken building, including giving it a more “appropriate” name, and the sluggish bureaucracy for outpatient care.

“We own that building, and we’re going to take charge of it,” Cody said at the Pentagon. “The senior Army leadership takes full responsibility for the lack of quality of life at Building 18, and we’re going to fix it.”

Cody blamed “a breakdown in leadership” for the troubling conditions but said no one has been fired or relieved of command. He did point to lower-ranking officers and noncommissioned officers lacking “the right experience and the authority to be able to execute some of the missions.”

“That’s what we’re correcting right now,” he said.

Read the rest of the article here.

The authors of the original article, Dana Priest and Ann Hull, discussed the article with readers on Tuesday 2/20/07 here. The discussion webpage also lists links to other pieces in the same series, well worth checking out if you missed them.

This is exactly the sort of thing journalism is supposed to do. We’ll see what actually happens. However, Walter Reed and The Washington Post have been overwhelmed with offers to help. I believe both will be listing ways to help shortly. In the meantime, Priest and Hull list several charities that work with Walter Reed in their discussion, and John Amato listed contact information here (apparently, phone cards and black backpacks are the most in demand).

For the past three years, Michael J. Wagner directed the Army’s largest effort to help the most vulnerable soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His office in Room 3E01 of the world-renowned hospital was supposed to match big-hearted donors with thousands of wounded soldiers who could not afford to feed their children, pay mortgages, buy plane tickets or put up visiting families in nearby hotels.

But while he was being paid to provide this vital service to patients, outpatients and their relations, Wagner was also seeking funders and soliciting donations for his own new charity, based in Texas, according to documents and interviews with current and former staff members. Some families also said Wagner treated them callously and made it hard for them to receive assistance.

Last week, Walter Reed launched a criminal investigation of Wagner after The Washington Post sought a response to his activities while he ran the Army’s Medical Family Assistance Center, a position he left several weeks ago. Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, the commander at Walter Reed, said the probe by the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) “reflects the seriousness with which we take these allegations.”

Read more at MSNBC

This is the charity he was pimping for.