1. The commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center does not control the barracks or Mologne House. The Army went through a reorganization a couple of years ago and created Installation Management Command (originally Installation Management Agency) was created to operate things like barracks, housing, personnel offices, gyms, etc. Thus, the MG who commands the hospitals (actually commands the Walter Reed system) cannot directly affect the barracks.

2. The physical evaluation board is also not controlled by the commanding general at Walter Reed. If the Physical Evalaution Board is slow, all the WRAMC commander can do is complain like everyone else.

The problems at Walter Reed are much more about how government functions, about the problems inherent to operating in ghetto and in DC, and the problems inherent to operating inside the government’s rules.

Anyone who claims that having Clinton in the White House would fix all of the problems is doing nothing more than carrying water for the Democrats.

…

The inaugral ball sure was supporting the troops….

Actually, if you look at the _ress-ganey scores for patients at WHC, they are terrible. WHC has also had huge problems getting nurses to drive into the “ghetto” in order to staff the hospital. The last president of WHC resort to importing huge numbers of filipino nurses who did not know what a crappy neighborhood WHC was located in.

Jim,

The GS-7 clerks are the ones who process and file the disability claims. If they do not care about their job and continually lose the files, the process grinds to a halt. If the diability claims are not processed, then the injuried service members are left hanging around waiting for the processing.

I just remembered that the Commander at WRAMC is not responsible for the processing but that it is done by a different group.

If the turn over in the clerks and adminstrators is also very high, it becomes very hard to be efficient at processing the disability claims.

I would love to hear how you would propose making civil servants into a fast, efficent organization. No one in DC has ever been able to do it.
WHC also suffers from turn over in physicians because the patients of many physicians just do not want to drive into the bad parts of DC for their healthcare. That is one of the reasons that INOVA in northern Virginia is growing much faster than WHC is.

Deb,

What do you think the Democratic minority would have done if the Bush Administration had proposed suspending civil service regulations at WRAMC, or suspending minority set aside contracting at WRAMC, or proposed privitizing much of the workforce? The Democrats would have screamed bloody murder. Unless you are willing to change the rules, WRMAC is continue to be the train wreck it has been for decades.

If throwing money at a problem in DC fixed the problem, the DC public schools would have been fixed long ago. You have to realize that WRAMC faces almost exactly the same problems that the DC public schools, to DC Metro, or the DC criminals system faces.

The fact of the matter is, that no matter how you spin it, no matter who you blame or don’t blame, innocent troops are paying another high price and they don’t deserve it. Health care should be a top priority, because with war, comes injuries. But that little fact continues to escape those who aren’t personally
concerned.

This time, it’s about the troops! Or don’t you care? Are you just in this for the argument and oneupmanship? Quit trying to place blame and decide that first thing Tuesday morning, you are going to confront one of your representatives and make them aware that this is unacceptable and that you will continue to do so until things change for the better. That our troops shouldn’t have to keep paying over and over again, for our incompetence. That our troops deserve better.

Is that too much to ask?

Actually, SD, I live in the Washington area, and I can tell you that several nationally renowned hospitals – Washington Hospital Center and Children’s National Medical Center are in poor, black areas. The staffing, facilities and treatment at both are exceptional. While I was never a patient at Walter Reed, I don’t think you can blame its “ghetto” location for its problems. You know the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, the National Archives,the National Zoo, The White House, Catholic University, the Capitol, and many other landmarks are in Washington. Like any other large urban area, there are problems with crime and poverty, but its still a great city, even though all of those Democrats live here.

Those G-7 clerks aren’t responsible for enough facilities not being built or leased. Neither are they repsonsible for the budgeting decisions of the last six years that didn’t account for the number of patients that this war combined with what’s left of our operations in Afghanistan would produce.

At this moment in time, anything bad is the direct fault of Bush and the Republicans, regardless of how many years or generations any given problem has been in existence.

Let’s see Austin. One in 17 people being treated currently at Walter Reed is actually in patient. One in 17.

Care to pick a point in history where that was the case in the past?

Or SuperDestroyer? Do you think that, at the height of Vietnam, there were 17 outpatients in rented hotels or apartments, for every in patient?

I do not blame politics for any of the problems at Walter Reed. The problem is inherent to the ways that the federal government operates inside the Beltway.

I would love to hear how an Obama/Clinton Administration would make the GS-7 clerks at Walter Reed do their jobs better?

Give it up. This is an argument you cannot win with logic, facts or history.

At this moment in time, anything bad is the direct fault of Bush and the Republicans, regardless of how many years or generations any given problem has been in existence. Anything good is not news, unless attributable to the Democrats.

In a lot of his poems he does dialect. In particular, variations on cockney dialect, given the working class origins of British troops.

The “Widow’s Uniform” is not a reference to dead soldiers but to Queen Victoria…popularly known at the time as the “Widow of Windsor” as she wore black and lived in seclusion for decades after her husband’s death.

I was also struck by the fact that, as Kipling’s poem suggests, over a century ago British war veterans were cynical about promises from politicians about their care. The more things change, the more they remain the same…

I agree completely.

Looking at the treatment of veterans in a historical lens, I don’t think much will be done.

I was noting the selective nature of the outrage from the Left on this issue, and their silence on other issues of support for the troops. I also recall Republicans ripping into the Clinton adminstration over pay and more than per forma support for veterans.

The only veterans who were treated decently, that comes to mind, were those after the Second World War. The treatment of WW I veterans was disgraceful…the Korean vets often forgotten…Vietnam…well….

I don’t think anything lasting will be done about this unless it is bipartisan. To be frank, I don’t think anything will be done.

Kipling expressed this idea best in his poem “Tommy”. The fact that we are still discussing this issue generations later is indicative of the reality Kipling described…that our societies treat veterans disgracefully on the whole – and that their welfare will be used and discarded for partisan purposes (how many on the Left will care about Walter Reed under President Obama?).

From Kipling’s “Tommy“:

“You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!”

Most of the care given at WRAMC is provide by civilian employees. Also, muchof the adminstrative work such as the Physical Disability Board is run by civil servants.

Walter Reed suffers from a huge number of problems that make it the least desired placed to be assigned inside the Army Medical Department.

Walter Reed is located in a tough section of NE Washington, DC. It has a very high turn over of civil servants. It is isolated in a place that makes it very unsafe to walk anywhere in the general area. The place is lacking parking and thus force the ow level employees to use public transportation.

The NCO’s assigned to companies like the referred to medical hold are the least desired positions in the Army. Thus, the worst sergeants are assigned to them.

It should not surprise anyone that in a city that cannot plow the snow, fix the boilers in its public schools, or solve most of its murder cases is not going to be able to run a hospital.

If you look at the nearest civilian hospitals to Walter Reed in the DC area, Howard, Providence, Greater Southeast, and Prince Georges are all poorly run hospitals that are going broke.