Pentagon and Congress Argue Over New Hospital for Wounded Troops
Source: New York Times
Pentagon and Congress Argue Over New Hospital for Wounded Troops
By THOM SHANKER
Published: June 10, 2012
WASHINGTON As the Pentagon and Congress argue over how to shrink the military to fit smaller federal budgets, no debate over matching money to mission is more heartfelt than the order to shut down the premier overseas hospital for grievously wounded troops and replace it with a new one.
With scant public notice, the Defense Department is closing, and relocating, the aging hospital, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the only top-level military trauma center outside the United States.
The hospital has earned its vaunted reputation over the past decade as it has evacuated, treated and stabilized all American military personnel injured in Afghanistan and Iraq. It treats 500,000 patients a year.
There is no dispute that replacing the hospital, which opened 59 years ago, is a good idea. And building its replacement next to Ramstein Air Base in Germany would reduce transit time for patients. Additional savings would be found by closing Ramsteins existing clinic and combining it with the Landstuhl replacement.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world/europe/landstuhl-hospital-to-be-replaced-but-with-what.html?_r=1
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)build a fabulous hospital to replace Landstuhl with the cost savings.
But we won't. The military industrial complex is too powerful. All they will want to pay for is bigger and better and more killing machines.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Ford class aircraft carrier cost? Which reminds me, they are running out of republican presidents to name carriers after. I guess we will be seeing a USS Hoover soon.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)its was just too old to fit the modern plan of health care.
http://www.army.mil/article/5878/wuerzburg-hosp