Military medical system: “underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed.”

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON, April 14 — Wounded soldiers and veterans poured out their frustrations with the military health care system on Saturday, telling a presidential commission that they had often had difficulty getting care because military doctors were overwhelmed by the needs of service members injured in Iraq.

Speaking from experience, the soldiers and veterans described the military health care system as a labyrinth, said their families had been swamped with paperwork and complained that some care providers lacked compassion.

Marc A. Giammatteo, who has undergone more than 30 operations to repair a leg torn apart by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq, said the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, had been inundated with wounded members of the armed forces who surpassed its capacity.

~snip~

Dr. John H. Chiles, a retired colonel who was chief of anesthesiology at Walter Reed and chief of staff at the United States Army hospital in Baghdad, said the military medical system was “underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed.”

much more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/washington/15wounded.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin

[aquart]

1. They should change their name to Halliburton.

They'd get their budget tripled.

[izzie]

2. This is what happens when a new plane becomes more

important than the man that work in it and on it. When a Congress man wants a new item for his voters it is hard to get interested in a man who may have had his foot shot off. That man may not even vote or vote in his voting area. He is hardly first on a Congressman's first list unless he may have been in the service and even then look at our crook from Ca. who is in jail and he an ex-fighter ace. Greed and power. We should all understand that.

[izzie]

3. I need to add that the DOD has all the money they need.

More than most countries and they just need to spend it right.