Panel calls for better care for wounded
WASHINGTON – A presidential commission recommended major steps Wednesday to overhaul the treatment of military personnel wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying a system criticized for shabby treatment and numbing bureaucracy needed “fundamental change.”
The nation must move beyond “merely patching the system” and apply “a sense of urgency and strong leadership” to create a system focused on the needs of individual patients, the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors concluded.
President Bush, who met with the panel leaders Wednesday, created the commission in March. A series of stories in the Washington Post drew attention to poor conditions and neglect of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where approximately 30 percent of wounded soldiers are treated.
In its 25-page report, the panel called for a “patient-centered recovery plan” for each seriously injured service member, for which “a corps of well-trained, highly skilled recovery coordinators” needs to be organized. It also proposed what was described as the first major overhaul in the veterans’ disability system in 50 years.
Donna Shalala, a former secretary of Health and Human Services and a commission co-chair, said that the Bush administration could implement 29 of the 35 recommendations without legislation.
“The ball’s in their court,” said former Sen. Bob Dole, the other co-chair, adding that he had told the president: “We’re expecting somebody to follow up on it.”
Shalala said the recommendations could be implemented for less than $500 million, with an ultimate 10-year cost of $1 billion.
The individualized recovery plans would be intended, the report said, “to ensure an efficient, effective, and smooth rehabilitation and transition back to military duty or civilian life,” while also creating a single point of contact for patients and families.
Seriously wounded troops regularly are assigned multiple caseworkers, each concerned with only one aspect of their treatment.
Bush, after running on the White House’s South Lawn with two soldiers who had lost legs in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, said he instructed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson “to look at every one of these recommendations, to take them seriously, and to implement them.”
Nicholson announced his resignation earlier this month, saying that he plans to step down no later than Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, the Senate voted by unanimous consent on legislation that seeks to end inconsistencies in disability pay. It would provide for a special review of cases in which those in the military received low ratings of their level of disability. The aim is to determine if they were shortchanged.
“It has been hurry up and wait for the results of this commission report and now the White House is telling our vets to wait even longer,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “That’s why the Senate has moved ahead with our Wounded Warriors Act. The public is waiting, our veterans are waiting.”