Better care for soldiers vowed
WASHINGTON – The co-chairmen of a new bipartisan presidential commission charged with looking into the care of wounded service members vowed Wednesday to conduct a comprehensive and vigorous investigation, possibly leading to recommendations that could change the system for decades.
Former Sen. Bob Dole, a Republican from Kansas who was seriously wounded in World War II, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, a Democrat who served for eight years in the Clinton administration, told reporters after a meeting at the White House that President Bush wants them to look at the entire military care system following revelations of shortcomings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Bush on Wednesday named Dole and Shalala to head the commission, which he formed in response to a growing outcry over the care of wounded outpatient soldiers. Demands for corrective action arose among the public and in Congress after the Washington Post last month exposed squalid living conditions in a decrepit Army-owned building just outside Walter Reed and highlighted bureaucratic obstacles and delays in the outpatient treatment of soldiers who suffered serious injuries, including brain trauma, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This is going to be comprehensive; it’s going to be vigorous,” Shalala said as she and Dole stood outside the White House after their meeting with Bush. “And neither one of us are afraid of talking to the brass, whether it’s the president of the United States or a general.”
Bush said after the Oval Office meeting, “I am concerned that our soldiers and their families are not getting the treatment that they deserve, having volunteered to defend our country.” He pledged that “any report of medical neglect will be taken seriously by this administration … and we will address problems quickly.”
The rest of the commission members are to be named this week, the White House said Tuesday.
“The president actually asked us to look at the whole system from the time a soldier is moved from Iraq or Afghanistan into other kinds of care, and he made it very clear that if one soldier doesn’t get high-quality treatment and isn’t transitioned back into civilian life or back into the military, that’s unacceptable,” Shalala said.
Dole, 83, and Shalala, 66, said they would start by talking to military patients and their families.
In the years since Dole was seriously wounded while serving as a young Army officer in Italy, losing the use of his right arm, “health care has changed,” Shalala said. “Now there’s a tremendous outpatient piece,” especially since more wounded soldiers are surviving their injuries than ever before.
“We have a war now with a significant number of lives being saved that weren’t saved in previous wars,” she said. “That requires a very different kind of system, and we need to get this right for everyone.”
In Congress, meanwhile, lawmakers held another series of hearings Wednesday to probe the shortcomings in military care. The defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing on Defense Department medical programs, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee investigated the “adjudication process” for veterans benefits, and the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee called in top Army brass to ask more questions about the situation at Walter Reed.
The chairman of the Senate subcommittee, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, himself a wounded World War II veteran, said treatment of the nation’s war wounded “now requires our complete attention and scrutiny.” He added: “It is not just a matter of medical care. We must recognize the changing implications of our service members’ surviving life-threatening injuries and the fact that many of them have the utmost desire to return to active duty.”
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., cited reports of maltreatment of wounded veterans in her home state and said she holds Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army surgeon general and a former Walter Reed commander, “accountable for every disturbing story I’m hearing.” She also demanded his personal assurance that soldiers who blow the whistle on substandard care will not face retaliation.
Kiley, appearing before the panel after having testified before other congressional committees Monday and Tuesday, reiterated his apologies for the situation at Walter Reed and said Building 18, which formerly housed nearly 80 wounded soldiers, has been emptied.
“We’re taking steps to improve responsiveness of our leaders and our medical system and to enhance support services for families of our wounded warriors,” he told the subcommittee.