COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Veterans
Report Says Fixes Slow To Come at Walter Reed
Steve Vogel, Washington Post
September 27, 2007
More
than half a year after disclosures of systemic problems at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, the Pentagon's
promised fixes are threatened by staff shortages and uncertainty about
how best to improve long-term care for wounded troops, according to a
congressional report issued yesterday.
Army units developed to shepherd recovering soldiers lack enough nurses
and social workers, and proposals to streamline the military's
disability evaluation system and to provide "recovery coordinators" are
behind schedule, according to the Government Accountability Office
report.
Members of a congressional oversight committee, discussing the report
at a hearing yesterday, said the effort to reform the medical
bureaucracy has itself become mired in bureaucracy.
"After so many promises but so little progress, we need to see more
concrete results," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), the ranking
Republican on the panel. His staff hears "appalling stories" every week
from soldiers dealing with the disability process, he said, adding that
"they're trapped in a system they don't understand and that doesn't
understand them."
"The pace of change is frustratingly slow," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman
(D-Calif.), chairman of the oversight committee. "Still the horror
stories continue."
Members of the House oversight subcommittee on national security laid
the blame on the Defense Department, the Army and the Department of
Veterans Affairs for what Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.) termed an
"utter lack of urgency."
The preliminary GAO report said the Army has taken steps to streamline
its disability evaluation process, which determines whether soldiers
are fit for duty and, if not, what disability payments they should
receive. Nonetheless, the report noted, "Many challenges remain, and
critical questions remain unanswered."
For example, the Army has established "warrior transition units" at 32
installations around the country, with recovering soldiers assigned to
a team of physicians, case managers and squad leaders. Whereas the unit
at Walter Reed is almost fully staffed, more than half the units had
less than 50 percent of workers in place by mid-September, the GAO
found.
Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Walter Reed commander, told the
subcommittee that the units have 65 percent of their manpower and
should be fully staffed by January.
In July, a presidential commission led by former senator Robert J. Dole
and former health and human services secretary Donna E. Shalala
recommended that "recovery coordinators" be assigned to shepherd each
seriously wounded service member through medical care. A high-level
oversight committee established by the Pentagon and the VA agreed to
begin implementing the recommendation by mid-October.
But the oversight committee has not determined how many recovery
coordinators will be needed or how to decide which injured soldiers
need them, the GAO found.
Moreover, the Dole-Shalala commission recommended that the recovery
coordinators come from outside the Defense Department or the VA,
suggesting instead the Public Health Service.
The oversight committee has balked at the suggestion in favor of
recovery coordinators supplied by the VA. But the GAO questioned the
beleaguered VA's ability to handle the job, noting that it "may face
significant human capital challenges in identifying and training
individuals for these positions."
A slew of commissions and task forces have agreed that at the heart of
the bureaucratic maze is a system in which the military services and
the VA evaluate injured service members. The often-conflicting
evaluations leave many recovering soldiers in limbo for months or even
years.
A pilot program to establish a single joint system was slated to begin
Aug. 1. But the date slipped as the Pentagon and the VA reviewed
options.
Michael L. Dominguez, a deputy undersecretary of defense, testified
that a pilot program was approved this week but probably would not
begin evaluating wounded soldiers until January.
"We're seven months into this process, and we're just now getting off the ground," Tierney said. "Why has it taken so long?"
Dominguez responded that the Pentagon and the VA needed to exercise
"due diligence" before plunging forward with fundamental changes. "It
does take some time to develop those details," he said.
Members of the panel sharply criticized Walter Reed for the hospital's
handling of the case of Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, who testified
before the panel in March about his more than two years spent
navigating the disability system. The Washington Post reported this
month that a paperwork glitch further delayed his retirement.
Schoomaker said the problem has been resolved, but panel members
described the episode as highly troubling, given the public prominence
of Shannon's case.
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