9bfca26685816742384b…

Point 1: The commanding general is completely responsible for everything that happens in his command. That’s why they pay him or her the big bucks.

I agree, but you were missing my point. Since you have not read what I said, I’ll say it again. The point is that Major General (two starts) Weightman IS not the only general or commander involved. He also was in command only six months. Anyone who has commanded before knows it takes a few months before you can ID problems and make changes. MG Weightman was a great general and it is a shame that everything he has done and all his service was thrown out because he couldn’t change all the Bullshit of Walter Reed in six months (and WRMAC is a culture very resistent to change). Meanwhile others who commanded before him walk away scott free…

The new bosses in town will throw whoever they can to the democratic wolves to deflect any blame at all…

Point 2: I personally have had similar experiences of official apathy, IN A CIVILIAN HOSPITIAL, some caused by insurance company practiced, but also caused by sheer incompetence and indifference of staff and administrators. It is why lawyers make lots of money with malpractice suits.

In other words, substandard treatment of patients does happen, even at the best of facilities. It shouldn’t, but it does. But it is also true that the civil remedy (a whopping bit malpractice award) is not available to those serving in the military. And it is why those in charge must be held personally accountable.

Point 3: If this is a matter of lower ranks keeping higher uninformed (for whatever reason), then the clean up job will have to go down the chain as far as necessary to make it right. If this is a matter of indifference by those at the top — in that lower did inform higher, who still ignored the problem — then relieving them of command is NOT sufficient. Courts-martial ought to be on the table in that event.

If you saw Bob Woodruff’s special the other night, you would know that not just the military side has problem, but so does the VA in certain parts of the country, especially in rural areas with rehab. This needs to be addressed to.

We owe these men and women the best care that they can get.

Consider these reports (and my story) as examples of socialized healthcare in action.

baldilocks on March 1, 2007 at 4:47 PM

Any questions people?

I saw Kiley interviewed on television. He said that he lived across the street from Bldg 18, but had never been inside.

I agree, but I was talking about MG Weightman. I’m not familiar with a building called “Bldg 18″… but they describe it as a former hotel on GA ave. That sounds like what used to be the “Walter Reed Inn” (it was the transient officers quarters) and I stayed there in 1997. Back then it was not that bad. And it WAS right across the street from some generals quarters.

Sorry, that’s just bad management. If the hospital is his responsibility, there’s no excuse for not at least once walking through each building

I agree, but I question the fact that MG Weightman was responsible, but not Kiley (who commanded the place and lives across the street) or his subbordinate commanders who ACTUALLY command the hospital. Maybe it has changed… but as I said before in Dec2000 when I left WRAMC there was a COL in command of the Hospital and a one star in charge of the “Walter Reed Healthcare System” (which I believe was the hospital, plus outpatient clinics, Ft Belvoir, the pentagon clinic… etc). The two star command (the one who was relieved) was the NARMC “Commanding General” (the proper term… Sorry Allah don’t mean to nitpick). He was in charge of all medical centers/activities in the North East United States.

I hope they nail these guys to the walls, and I hope there’s a call for more investigations on other VAs as well.

One Angry Christian on March 1, 2007 at 4:14 PM

You better start canning all the Indians who are running VAs. The one in Wilkes-Barre is ran by a couple of Indians and they treat EVERYONE like crap. I was dating a girl there while she was a doctor there and she let me visit and see the crappiness of it.

Additonally, I have been an inpatient at one of the local VA hospitals in recent years. (On one occasion–after a minor surgery and after ringing the nurse button several times over a period of two hours–I got up out of my bed, walked down the hall and lit into them. I was bleeding and my bed needed changing and, yes, I left a trail of plasma from my room to the nurse station. Since the average VA inpatient is 60, they’re used to those who aren’t as ambulatory and…um…energetic as I was.)
baldilocks on March 1, 2007 at 4:47 PM

When I was in the VA hospital in Houston years ago, the security was a joke. They cared more about vets who might bring in a plastic bag of pogey bait than they did about WHO might be coming in.

One night, I saw a guy who obviously was not a patient, and not visiting anyone sneak in a back door. There were cameras, but security must have been sleeping.
I went after him, but lost him when he ran up a stairway.
All I could think of was all of the older vets there who were not ambulatory, or were asleep most of the time, and this guy getting into their rooms and stealing them blind.

I hope they nail these guys to the walls, and I hope there’s a call for more investigations on other VAs as well.

One Angry Christian on March 1, 2007 at 4:14 PM

It’s been pointed out before, and the VA’s themselves certainly need to be looked at but, Walter Reed is a military hospital, not a VA.

the big question is how far up do you go? Was the Commanding General of the 101st responsible for 5 of his soldiers raping that Iraqi girl? There needs to be common sense test applied.

I saw Kiley interviewed on television. He said that he lived across the street from Bldg 18, but had never been inside. Sorry, that’s just bad management. If the hospital is his responsibility, there’s no excuse for not at least once walking through each building.

People who believe in socialized medicine need to get a clue as to why TRICARE is a 4-letter word.

]

Don’t you mean TRY-CARE?

The reason they have had all the problems is they were trying to do too much and rather than release them to the VA (which we all know sucks), they kept them longer than ever.

In past wars, injured soldiers were treated and discharged to VA hospitals for follow-up care. Walter Reed has kept them longer to improve use of the latest prostheses or ease post traumatic stress disorder and mild brain injuries, maladies rarely diagnosed in Vietnam.

Major General George W. Weightman, commander of Walter Reed, says another reason for the long tenure of outpatients — the average length of stay is almost 300 days — is that many wounded soldiers who had joined the volunteer army hope to stay in uniform. “We want to work with them as long as we can to get to that point of maximum medical benefit and give them the best chance of remaining on active duty,” Weightman told me.

I know one of those soldiers who lost a leg and is still on active duty. This was bad, but a lot of it came from them trying too hard to do too much and not being able to keep up with the demand that they themselves had created. This started before Weightman too command. As I see it Walter Reed was a scandal waiting to happen… unfortunatley for Weightman, he was left standing when the music stopped…

He should have been aware of the conditions at Walter Reed. (His hospital) You can delegate authority but not responsibility.

x95b10, the big question is how far up do you go? Was the Commanding General of the 101st responsible for 5 of his soldiers raping that Iraqi girl? There needs to be common sense test applied. There were several layers of command between Weightman and these problems. I started my military career at Walter Reed. When I left in 2000 I hated that place. I volunteered for a deployment to the Balkans to get out of there. There is a mentality at WRAMC you can never understand. Entrenched civilians working there for 30yrs you can’t fire because of stupid liberal labor laws, a 9-5 attitude of field grade officers who are collecting a paycheck but not doing anything, the bureaucracy was incredible… these are problems you can’t fix in 6 months.

I also have commanded under then BG Weightman in Iraq during the initial 2003 invasion and again when he was the commander of 44th MEDCOM. I have found him to be the best medical General Officer I have ever served under. Also, he was not just in charge of the hospital. He was the NARMC (North Atlantic Regional Medical Command) Commander… he is based out of Walter Reed, but is in charge of all the medical facilities in the North East United States. When I left in 2000 there was a COL that commanded the Hospital itself and a one star that commanded the “Walter Reed Healthcare system” (ie the hospital and all the outpatient/research/extraneous activities). Wonder why were not reading about them? Woudln’t they be more directly responsible?

If you really look at this, this may be more MG Weightman’s reaction to the report than the actual report… but I firmly believe this is a political action by the new SECDEF. If you read the reports this was done with much input directly by Gates. They needed a Scapegoat… MG Weightman was it.

I was admitted to a base hospital in the middle of winter, with an upper respiratory infection and a temperature of 103. What was prescribed to bring me back to health? Drink lots of koolaid and take two aspirin four times a day. I went through three days of that treatment, never saw a doctor once, and at the end of three days my temperature was still over 102. As a youngster I had contracted pneumonia, so my immediate concern was that my URI could deteriorate into something much worse, possibly life threatening.

I managed to get myself discharged from that hospital by removing the thermometer from my mouth every time the nurse left my room, eventually convincing the staff my fever had broken. I had to drag myself out of bed and get my discharge paperwork from a doctor so I could return to my company. I found the doctor at the end of the hall sitting with his feet perched on a table, while puffing on a cigarette. The doc asked how I was feeling, I said fine, and he signed my papers without ever feeling my forehead or looking down my throat. I was still sick as a dog, but I escaped.

Fortunately I was stationed about 200 miles from home at the time, so I made a beeline for home as fast as I could to see my family doctor. My doc looked down my throat and all he said was “Damn!”. He shot me full of penicillin with a syringe the size of a horseneedle. It did the trick. Go figure.

That was 40 years ago, in another run down base hospital.

This story is also a perfect example of why a skilled bureaucrat spends so much time documenting what was done, how, when, by whom, at what cost, and under whose orders; [CYA].

This is not the first time this charge, poor treatment of wounded military veterans has been made to stick, nor will it be the last.

Getting all outraged, indignant, and getting caught up in the lynch mob hysteria is falling for a media provoked frenzy, whether it is bombs in Boston, police brutality, disgraceful treatment of senior citizens in nursing homes, unsanitary conditions at your favorite restaurant, or outpatient treatment at Walter Reed.

Fix the problem, but make sure you understand what the problem is, and the cause of the problem, before you try to fix it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised on Thursday to place the matter as an urgent priority and address the problems in the upcoming supplemental appropriations bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congressional hearings are also planned for next week.

So, they seem to be voting against spending before voting for spending. Makes me sick.

As AP knows, I’m a retired Air Force NCO. On the occasions when I had temporary duty at any given Army post and stayed in the barracks which housed the post’s equivalent-ranking permanent personnel, the Air Force would pay me extra money for having to stay in sub-standard housing–usually Korean War-era buildings and that’s being generous. The outpatient building in question sounds about right. (There are many reasons that AF personnel are considered spoiled; this is one of them.)

Additonally, I have been an inpatient at one of the local VA hospitals in recent years. (On one occasion–after a minor surgery and after ringing the nurse button several times over a period of two hours–I got up out of my bed, walked down the hall and lit into them. I was bleeding and my bed needed changing and, yes, I left a trail of plasma from my room to the nurse station. Since the average VA inpatient is 60, they’re used to those who aren’t as ambulatory and…um…energetic as I was.)

So none of these revelations surprised me in the least. However, these anecdotes let neither the commanders nor the Army off the hook. These GIs have to recover from infinitely more serious injuries/illnesses than those from my peacetime Active Duty/retiree boo-boos and they should be treated accordingly.

Consider these reports (and my story) as examples of socialized healthcare in action.

x95b10 on March 1, 2007 at 4:14 PM

Your point is well taken.

Hidden in my point was the implication that a changing of the guard doesn’t change the system. Bureaucracies, of any kind, tend to settle back into their failing ways once the dust has cleared.

We’ll revisit this same problem again in a decade or so, and heads will roll again.

Regardless of the reason, maybe they made the right decision by mistake, but relieving this general of command is the right place to start.