Witnesses Testify to Battles with Walter Reed Bureaucracy

[babylonsister]

http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/03/06/2125-witnesses-testify-to-battles-with-walter-reed-bureaucracy/

Witnesses Testify to Battles with Walter Reed Bureaucracy
Mar 06, 2007
BY Fred W. Baker III

snip//

Part of the problem, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Richard A. Cody said, is that policies and rules governing many of the health care systems have not been updated for as many as 50 years and have been put to the test by the last five years of war.

"Soldiers and staff are faced with the confusing and frequently demoralizing task of sifting through too much information in too many interdependent decisions and bureaucracies," Cody testified.

Cody said top officials are reviewing the reported problems and already have identified some personnel problems that need to be fixed.

"Our counselors and case mangers are overworked, and they do not receive enough training," he said. "We do not adequately communicate necessary information, and our administrative processes are needlessly cumbersome and, quite frankly, take too long."

Cody also cited problems that are being fixed in the medical holding units where so many of the outpatient problems have been reported in recent weeks.

"Our medical holding units are not manned to the proper level, and we do not assign leaders who can ensure proper accountability, proper discipline and well-being of our wounded Soldiers, ... and our facilities are not maintained to a standard that we know is right," Cody said.

snip//

[jwirr]

1. When my son-in-law did battle with the VA after being hurt in the

army we learned what the real goal of the military and va personnel is: to keep disability costs as low as possible.

When he got hurt I told a Vietnam vet who gave me some very good advice: get the files because they "lose" them so that they can claim the injury was not related to active duty service. When my son-in-law called from DC where he was getting his last physical before being released I told him to get copies. He did better: he took the originals when the doctor walked out of the room for a minute.

When my son-in-law went to his va rep at home the man laughed and said, "I am going to win one." They did.

They are not case workers and doctors they are working for the government to put down as many claims as they can. To hell with the vet. But they do have the sheeple convinced that they are helpers.

[Monkeyman]

2. Bush ordered Sec. Nicholson to cut cost.

That means cuts on the backs of those of us who served