A Walter Reed Hospital postcard, ca. 1930sI am writing about the deplorable out-patient conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and to condemn the arrogance displayed by the Bush Administration and the Army brass, which is shameful at best and at worse, criminal.
I hope this situation finally highlights how our GI's and vets are treated by this Administration after nobly serving this nation.
It's a long told sad story of scandalous conditions at our VA hospitals, but now the same dismal conditions are found at active military hospitals.
I ask, if this is happening at Walter Reed in Washington DC, how do you think our wounded and disabled troops are being treated in other, less prominent facilities across the country?
For the Administration and the Army to make the claim that these issues weren't known simply shows their callousness and illustrates how our troops come second to military careers of general officers and special deals for Administration cronies.
The current commander Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley said that the problems "weren't serious and there weren't a lot of them." He also said they were not "emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families." He blamed the troops by saying they shouldn't be leaving food or garbage in their rooms.
But according to the press, Kiley and other senior commissioned and noncommissioned officers were hearing complaints about out-patient care over the past several years.
The complaints had surfaced at on-base town hall meetings, at sessions in which soldiers and officers are encouraged to speak freely, and in several inspector general's reports detailing building conditions, safety issues and other matters.
In fact, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded out of frustration. Rep. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities...we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who instead began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.
The Army Times has reported that..."Last October, Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment. She attended a weekly meeting, called Girls Time Out, at which wives, girlfriends and mothers of soldiers exchange stories and offer support."According to three people who attended the gathering, Rumsfeld listened quietly. Some of the women did not know who she was. At the end of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes."
When hospital officials found out that Mrs. Rumsfeld had visited, they told the friend who brought her - a woman who had volunteered there many times - that she was no longer welcome on the military base.
I've read, that every time the President, the Vice-President, the Defense Secretary or other “dignities” were coming to the military hospital, it would be thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned, like window dressing. The improvements would not last long, according to families of injured Iraq war veterans.
This week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was forced to subpoena Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was recently fired as head of Walter Reed, the Army refused to allow him to testify voluntarily before the committee.
The Committee has asked Gen. Weightman to testify about an internal Army memo that showed privatization of services which could put “patient care services at risk of mission failure.”
A memo written in September by Garrison Commander Garibaldi to Weightman, “describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services was causing an exodus of ‘highly skilled and experienced personnel,’” the committee’s letter states. “According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services led to a precipitous drop in support personnel.”
The memo said: “Without favorable consideration of these requests...Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure.”
A letter from the Committee stated that a five-year, $120-million contract was awarded to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official.
They found that more than 300 federal employees providing facilities management services had dropped to fewer than 60. IAP replaced the remaining 60 employees with only 50 private workers.
“The conditions that have been described at Walter Reed are disgraceful,” the letter continued, “Part of our mission on the Oversight Committee is to investigate what led to the breakdown in services. It would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological commitment to privatize government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldiers.”
It said the Defense Department “systemically” tried to replace federal workers with private companies for facilities management, patient care and guard duty – a process that began in 2000.
“But the push to privatize support services there accelerated under President Bush’s ‘competitive sourcing’ initiative, which was launched in 2002,” it states.
During the year between awarding the contract to IAP and when the company started, “skilled government workers apparently began leaving in droves,” the letter states. “The memorandum also indicates that officials at the highest levels of Walter Reed and the U.S. Army Medical Command were informed about the dangers of privatization, but appeared to do little to prevent them.”
The memo requests more federal employees because the hospital mission had grown “significantly” during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Commander Garibaldi wrote: “Without favorable consideration of these requests...Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure.” It states that medical command did not concur with their request for more people.
The evidence compiled so far suggests that Gen. Kiley has been more complicit in the scandalous neglect of Walter Reed's outpatient facilities for longer than Gen. Weightman has been.
As Rep. Young said yesterday of Gen. Weightman, "I don't know him. But I know he's the fall guy."
Why on earth was Lt. Gen. Kiley named as commander of the base again? It seems to me like another “heck of a job , Brownie” moment.
Let’s be clear about what’s to blame for the current debacle. It wasn’t overzealous regulation that led to soldier’s rooms being filled with mold and infested with mice and cockroaches. It was lack of oversight by a rubberstamp Republican Congress that led to those conditions. And it wasn’t government bureaucracy that led to the deterioration of the hospital staff. It was the George W. Bush payback to his corporate buddies with privatization.
I find this whole situation appalling and the epitome of arrogance. I feel it's important for people to know that this is how George W. Bush, our compassionate conservative president and the Army treats wounded and disabled troops.
