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More On The Walter Reed Army Medical Center Scandal
Read this MUST READ POST by a miliblogger who is an Army major wounded in Iraq who has had some surgeries there.
Our reader writes: “The articles in the Washington Post over this past weekend helped to shine some more light on the many problems at Walter Reed. But despite the good that will come from it, this really was agenda-driven journalism. What Chuck writes, on the other hand, comes from the perspective of a good officer who experienced many of these difficulties first hand.” The reader writes that many doctors and nurses do great work at the hospital:”But if there’s a single lesson to be learned here, it’s that good patient care doesn’t end when the doctors, nurses, and therapists leave the room.”
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7 Responses to “More On The Walter Reed Army Medical Center Scandal”
With all due respect to Chuck and the sacrifices that he made while in uniform, he needs to retire the “agenda driven” crap. It’s a red herring, plain and simple.
Of course the WaPo had an agenda. Every media outlet does. As a blogger, Chuck does, too.
In this instance, the WaPo‘s agenda was to reveal in shocking detail that beyond its world-class surgical suites, Walter Reed resembles a third-world leper colony and has for many years.
I fail to see why that in any way discredits the effort, which by golly led to a lot of finger-pointing (including the obligatory blame of NCO supervisors early on) followed by some long-overdue action to begin to correct the situation.
‘Chuck’ blames the relatives for going to the press and making a stink, even though he admits that those problems exist for more than two years now and apparently the normal chain of command hasn’t worked. He himself used some creative tricks on the bureaucracy to get out of that hellhole and didn’t do anything to change things for the grunts who weren’t able to do so. And he complains about soldiers seeking refuge in drinking, even though this seems to be a totally normal human reaction when people are victims of a system that ruins their lifes, with almost no chance to change anything about it.
He isn’t exactly a bad officer, but he sure should do something against the double standard he is using here.
I read briefly this morning that Gates has ordered a probe into Walter Reed. I have not been following the story, so I do not know if this is occurring early or late.
Alex
hscpub:
Late. The story broke on Sunday and refuses to die. Gates had no choice but to belatedly step up to the plate.
This is what I left at his blog.
OK let me get this straight, you use your position to escape duty and then again you use your position as an officer to leave this situation entirely. You then castigate the family members of some patient, who most likely does not have the rank and privileges you have, for not going through the chain of command to correct things and instead going to the press and “embarrassing� the Army. You should have joined the Chinese Army where things like this would never be exposed, where their press seeks to preserve at all costs the reputation of the Peoples Liberation Army and the officers of that Army. The press, regardless of all of their faults, has a duty to expose “dereliction of duty�, too bad if Army officers are embarrassed over it. There was, after all, plenty of time for the “chain of command� to take care of the situation before it came to this. There is a larger issue here, is this the situation at one hospital or is there a pattern of neglect nationwide? We won’t know unless a free and unfettered press looks into it, and that right of citizens to investigate and question their government regardless of who it “embarrasses� makes this country worth fighting for.
The larger issue here, the stultifying and paralyzing effect of bureaucracy, can be applied to most hospitals.
As each new concern surfaces, new forms and procedures are created, with little or no effort to integrate, steamline and apply common sense. The resulting waste is ignored, even as we tear our hair about the increasing costs of hospital care.
There is much complaining about the quality of staff. From what I’ve seen of hospitals, good staff can be created if it doesn’t come that way through the door. It requires training and oversight, both glaringly absent in the many hospitals I’ve dealt with. Doctors are not interested in how the hospital runs, and administrators are preoccupied with billing issues. Good head nurses are overworked and have little time for oversight of staff.
Every oonversation with someone in the medical field has led me to think that eadh is concerned with his niche only and there is no one to step back and see the whole picture. That’s the kind of atmosphere in which the worst effects of bureaucracies thrive.
Another Friday at Walter Reed…
“SUPPORT THE TROOPS.” For some people, it’s second nature. For others, it’s just an empty political slogan. On Friday, Tantor and I went to Walter Reed to visit some friends. But first, we stopped in front of the main gate……