United Spinal Association Recognizes Deficiencies at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; Urges Comprehensive Review and Reform of Wounded Service Member-to-Civilian Process
Jackson Heights, NY–– In the wake of the recent headlines concerning the deplorable conditions at some outpatient facilities at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., United Spinal Association is heartened that the Department of Defense (DoD) has sought accountability from senior commanding officers, however, such actions are only the first steps on a long road to fixing the problem.
“The real issue is not roaches, rats and rot in a building or two, but, rather, the systemic breakdown of the process by which a wounded service member becomes a veteran,” said Paul J. Tobin, President and Chief Executive Officer, United Spinal Association. “The conditions at Walter Reed are symptoms of an antiquated bureaucratic system that extends to other military medical facilities as well,” Tobin added.
The journey from wounded service member to reintegration as a disabled civilian into the community involves physical and psychological difficulties, and winds through two enormous bureaucracies, the DoD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). It is a transition that is anything but “seamless” (as the DoD and VA often refer to it). Once returned to the U.S. for acute medical care, wounded service members often languish on and off medical bases as outpatients for more than a year while the service department decides whether to discharge them from military service or to wait for them to sufficiently recover from their injuries so that they can be returned to duty.
When the service member is finally separated from military service, he or she becomes a veteran and then begins the process of enrolling in the VA’s health care system and applying for VA disability benefits. Both the DoD’s and VA’s health care systems are laden with endless amounts of paperwork that often become lost and result in long delays in appointment scheduling, transportation problems and coordination of treatment. In addition, the DoD’s and the VA’s many computer systems do not communicate with each other, both internally and between the agencies, further compounding the problems. The widespread privatization of non-medical services also plays a large role in administrative and logistical breakdowns, with inexperienced or incompetent contractors managing everything from patient meals to facilities maintenance.
Making matters worse, military medical bases, such as Walter Reed, that have been slated for closure through the Base Realignment and Closure processes, discourages the best medical personnel from working at the hospitals, discourages the proper maintenance and upkeep of the facilities and encourages privatization.
“It is also a question of capacity. The sheer numbers of the wounded that have inundated Walter Reed and other military medical centers have overwhelmed counselors and case managers. The disproportionate patient-to-staff ratios result in gaps in meeting patients’ needs through which many of these patients fall,” Tobin said. “Systems and process designed to serve the veterans of World War Two, Korea and Vietnam have become antiquated and dysfunctional in this era. Better equipment and field medicine have allowed our service members to survive devastating injuries that would have killed them in earlier wars. A greater demand for outpatient services requires a more intensive focus on this phase of the wounded service members’ recovery and rehabilitation.”
United Spinal Association believes that this intolerable situation cannot be remedied by merely pumping money into the system. The administration, Congress, the DoD and the VA must undertake a comprehensive review of all of the problems underlying these deficiencies and implement an immediate overhaul of existing systems that fail to serve the needs of our newest generation of veterans and of those that follow.
United Spinal Association is a national veterans service and disability rights advocacy organization serving over 7,000 members. Established more than 60 years ago by a group of paralyzed World War II veterans, United Spinal is currently the fastest growing organization in the country dedicated to serving people with spinal cord injuries and disorders. Through their efforts to secure better health care, accessible public buildings and transportation, and equal opportunities in the workplace, these veterans continued serving their country long after leaving the battlefield and today that legacy lives on in United Spinal Association’s expanded mission to serve not just our brave veterans but, all Americans living with paralysis or other mobility impairments. For more information, call 800.404.2898 or visit www.unitedspinal.org.