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Joseph Sarandos
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Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
To both new and old readers of TFTF, I encourage you to read or re-read the Veterans-related topics in this same, "Middle East Wars" section, most of which had been started by Aaron. This immediate article can be considered as a "topper" for such concerns, but, more importantly, since the Walter Reed Army Medical Center is located "right under the noses" of the politicians in Washington, DC, we should also consider that the horrible findings thereat are probably "the tip of the iceberg" insofar as similar conditions at the rest of such facilities throughout the United States.
Joseph
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Care of wounded U.S. troops "unacceptable": Gates
Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:23 PM ET
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday branded the outpatient care of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan "unacceptable" and promised officials would be held accountable for the failings.
The Bush administration has scrambled to address problems at the flagship Walter Reed Army Medical Center after newspaper reports showed wounded troops were living in shoddy conditions and struggling with bureaucratic procedures.
"After the facts are established, those responsible for having allowed this unacceptable situation to develop will indeed be held accountable," Gates said on a visit to the hospital, making his first public comments on the issue.
The Pentagon has announced an independent review into outpatient care due to the reports. Gates said some people most directly responsible for the problems had already been relieved of their duties but scrutiny would not end there.
"We will be looking (at) and evaluating the rest of the chain of command as we get more information," he told reporters at the hospital on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. No one had offered to resign, he said.
After a lengthy investigation, The Washington Post reported on Sunday that recuperating soldiers were living in a dilapidated building infested with mice, mold, and ****roaches.
The U.S. Army says it has already fixed some of the problems.
The newspaper also found wounded troops forced to untangle a web of bureaucratic red tape to obtain benefits and treatment as they coped with physical and psychological trauma.
Government investigators found the typical soldier must file 22 documents with eight different commands to enter and exit the medical processing system, the Post reported.
"They battled our foreign enemies -- they should not have to battle an American bureaucracy," Gates declared.
President George W. Bush has frequently praised wounded U.S. troops for their sacrifices.
After a visit to Walter Reed last December, he said: "We owe them all we can give them -- not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their time in service."
Gates said he had briefed Bush on Friday before visiting the hospital. "He is understandably concerned and emphatic in wanting the best possible care for our wounded soldiers and for their families," he said.
About 31,000 U.S. soldiers have been evacuated for medical reasons, 4,000 of them with battle injuries, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a top Army officer said this week.
Outpatients at Walter Reed are largely troops who have received initial medical care but require further treatment before they can go home or return to duty. The average outpatient stay lasts 10 months, the Washington Post said.
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2/23/2007, 4:14 pm
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NamVet2
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
Shameful situation! Especially because the Iraq/Afghanistan wars are creating disabled U.S. troops at a ratio of 10-to-one for every death.
Needless to say, our people have been on this since before the Washington Post had decided there were enough complaints to warrant its investigation and report.
Other newspapers might follow suit regarding other hospitals that we've complained about to them, unless the administration acts first upon the same complaints as were addressed to officials in the DVA, to preclude the same sort of public embarrassment.
It's about time that the gov starts appropriately meeting its avowed obligations to the honorable disabled vets of older wars, along with taking proper care of the new ones.
Just the funds that were soaked up and pocketed by the "politically connected" civilian contractors would have been enough to finance the needed reforms within the DVA.
Best regards to all,
Greg
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2/24/2007, 12:59 pm
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
As was expected by me, Military men have been scapegoated by the politicians (including President Bush) who knew, but did nothing about the shameful conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (and other such facilities).
Joseph
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/washington/02general.html?hp
March 2, 2007
General Is Fired Over Conditions at Walter Reed
By DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, March 1 — The two-star general in charge of Walter Reed Army Medical Center was relieved of command on Thursday, following disclosures that wounded soldiers being treated as outpatients there were living in dilapidated quarters and enduring long waits for treatment.
The officer, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, a physician and a graduate of West Point, was fired because Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey “had lost trust and confidence” in his ability to make improvements in outpatient care at Walter Reed, the Army said in a brief statement.
The revelations about conditions at the hospital, one of the Army’s best-known and busiest centers for treating soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, have embarrassed the Army and prompted two investigations, several Congressional inquiries and a rush to clean up the accommodations for outpatients, where residents lived with mold on the walls, stained carpets and other problems.
A series of disclosures published prominently in The Washington Post about the living conditions, the red tape that ensnarled treatment, and other serious problems have challenged the notion promoted for years by the Army — especially since the war in Iraq — that wounded soldiers receive unparalleled care at Walter Reed.
Army officials have defended the treatment provided to most patients at Walter Reed, especially the most serious cases, those admitted to inpatient wards on the hospital’s campus a few miles from the center of Washington.
But they have acknowledged that the large number of wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan, currently around 650 patients, has taxed doctors, nurses and other care providers and forced them to rely more heavily on overflow facilities to house outpatients who must remain near the hospital for treatment.
Officials refused to provide the specific reasons for General Weightman’s firing.
The Army has admitted in recent weeks that the system it uses to decide whether wounded soldiers who have been moved to outpatient status will be able to return to active duty often takes too long and has promised to change the system. At Walter Reed the process has taken an average of over 200 days, a source of frustration to soldiers and families who are awaiting decisions about what benefits they will receive if they retire.
Treatment of wounded soldiers has also been spotlighted recently in a documentary recounting the treatment received by the ABC News anchorman Bob Woodruff, who was wounded in Iraq last year. Mr. Woodruff contrasted his care with that of soldiers, finding that Veterans Administration regional medical centers provide retired soldiers with good care but that local V.A. hospitals are less skilled at dealing with complex problems like traumatic brain injuries.
Mr. Harvey told reporters Thursday that the Army was also examining conditions at other medical facilities, both in the United States and abroad. “We’ll fix as we find things wrong,” he said.
Paralleling the Army effort, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appointed a panel last week to examine conditions at Walter Reed and other Defense Department hospitals it chooses, including the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Mr. Gates endorsed the decision to relieve General Weightman in a statement Thursday.
“The care and welfare of our wounded men and women in uniform demand the highest standard of excellence and commitment that we can muster as a government,” he said. “When this standard is not met, I will insist on swift and direct corrective action and, where appropriate, accountability up the chain of command.”
Mr. Gates had signaled earlier, after a visit to Walter Reed, that senior officials would probably be relieved of command.
A Pentagon official said that, in addition to General Weightman, a captain, two noncommissioned officers, and an enlisted soldier involved in outpatient treatment were being reassigned. He said he could not provide further information because of Defense Department confidentiality rules.
General Weightman assumed command of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center on August 25, 2006. He oversees medical facilities in seven other states in addition to Walter Reed and is one of the most senior officers to be relieved in connection with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He could not be reached for comment.
The Army said that command of Walter Reed would be taken over temporarily by Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army’s top medical officer.
A 1973 graduate of the United States Military Academy, General Kiley received a medical degree in 1982 from the University of Vermont and has held a series of medical commands in the past two decades, including “land component command surgeon” during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In comments to reporters on Feb. 16, just before the first of a series of articles was published by The Post, General Weightman conceded that there were problems with outpatient care at Walter Reed, but said that improvements were being made.
“The family members get a little frustrated because, I mean, we are really disrupting their lives,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.
In the last year, General Weightman said, Walter Reed had increased to 17 from 4 the number of caseworkers charged with helping outpatients with the paperwork and other requirements of the patient disability evaluation system, which determines whether soldiers can remain in the military or retire with full benefits.
He said that the process often took months or years at Walter Reed because the hospital handled some of the most complex medical cases, involving head trauma and other conditions that made gauging recovery difficult.
Outpatients at Walter Reed have received initial treatment but require further care or rehabilitation before retiring from the armed forces or returning to active duty.
Addressing reports that recovering soldiers were asked to attend daily inspection, even when under medication, Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said that there would be periodic inspections in the outpatient facilities. Mr. Boyce added that soldiers who are able were asked to attend a daily morning meeting where treatment options and other information were discussed but that the sessions were not inspections.
Mr. Boyce said the worst conditions in the outpatient residences had been corrected but added the Army was planning to make more repairs, like replacing a faulty heating and air-conditioning system that was the cause of the mold on the walls.
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3/1/2007, 8:12 pm
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
Now Bush makes this a matter of extreme urgency, as if he'd been personally ignorant of it before it hit the newspapers, even though he boasts of having visited the wounded at the VA hospitals. Let's all hope that this results in some immediate and meaningful actions for the benefit of the vets.
Joseph
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Bush Orders Review of Veterans' Hospitals
By TERENCE HUNT
The Associated Press
Friday, March 2, 2007; 11:24 AM
WASHINGTON -- President Bush ordered a comprehensive review Friday of conditions at the nation's military and veteran hospitals in the wake of a scandal surrounding care for wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
The White House said the president would name a bipartisan commission to assess whether the problems at Walter Reed existed at other facilities.
The action came after The Washington Post documented squalid living conditions for some outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed and bureaucratic problems that prevented many troops from getting adequate care.
Bush devoted his weekly radio address _ to be broadcast on Saturday _ to the problems of veterans' care, and the White House took the unusual step of releasing excerpts in advance. A full text also was to be released later Friday. The administration's response came amid growing outrage about the poor treatment of some veterans _ and the prospect that it could backfire on the White House.
"One of my most solemn experiences as president is visiting men and women recovering from wounds they suffered in defense of country," Bush said his prepared address. "Spending time with these wounded warriors is also inspiring because so many of them bring the same courage they showed on the battlefield to their battle for recovery."
A day earlier, the Pentagon announced the firing of Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, the commander of Walter Reed. In a brief announcement, the Army said service leaders had "lost trust and confidence" in Weightman's leadership abilities "to address needed solutions for soldier outpatient care." It said the decision to fire him was made by Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey.
Bush, in his radio address, said he had asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to make a firsthand assessment of conditions at Walter Reed. "He confirmed to me there are real problems at Walter Reed and he has taken action to hold people accountable, including relieving the general in charge of the facility.
"As we work to improve conditions at Walter Reed, we are also taking steps to find out whether similar problems have occurred at other military and veteran hospitals," the president said.
"We will use the commission's recommendations as part of our ongoing effort to improve our service to our nation's veterans," Bush said.
The commission to be named by Bush is separate from a review panel appointed by Gates to investigate outpatient care at Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. The presidential panel will look at all of the nation's military and veteran facilities, according to White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino.
© 2007 The Associated Press
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3/2/2007, 8:53 am
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NamVet2
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
Nice going Chief!
This has been a great series of articles and your comments.
I think and hope that Bush has finally gotten the message, if for no other reason than to save face for himself and his administration.
Greg
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3/2/2007, 9:14 am
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
quote:
NamVet2 wrote:
Nice going Chief!
This has been a great series of articles and your comments.
I think and hope that Bush has finally gotten the message, if for no other reason than to save face for himself and his administration.
Greg
Thanks Greg,
But happily, the story isn’t quite over with in the mainstream news medium, i.e.; this new article in TIME. I fully concur with it, and hope to see more of the same genre.
Joseph
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TIME
Friday, Mar. 02, 2007
Firing the Wrong General
By Mark Thompson/Washington
As the Iraq war prepares to enter its fifth year — a war that the Bush administration and its backers contended would be a cakewalk — the first senior military officer has finally had to walk the plank for screwing up.
But critics who have been long calling for some accountability aren't likely to be appeased. The officer taking the fall, after all, wasn't Tommy Franks, the Army general who as chief of Central Command scuttled Anthony Zinni's more robust war plan and agreed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that invasion-lite was the way to go. Nope, he got the Presidential Medal of Freedom. So did former CIA chief George ("Slam Dunk") Tenet and L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, who as Iraqi viceroy fired the entire Iraqi army, a move now widely seen as laying the groundwork for a sustained insurgency.
And it wasn't the fellow who replaced Franks, John Abizaid, a fine Army officer by all accounts but one who also stressed the need for a "light footprint" inside Iraq that merely dragged out the death and dying on both sides. He'll retire soon to praise and pension.
And General George Casey, Abizaid's underling and overall commander inside Iraq for the past 30 months, has just won promotion to Army chief of staff.
That's why the firing of Major General George Weightman — the guy running Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the past six months — seems so out of line. The Army brass ousted him 10 days after the Washington Post exposed the squalid living conditions — and lassez-faire attitude from hospital staff — that many outpatients experienced. Weightman was replaced, at least temporarily, by Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, the commander of U.S. Medical Command. But there are two things wrong with that, Army insiders say. Weightman was actually trying to fix problems that arose during the tenure of his predecessor in the job — and that man was none other than Kiley.
This sudden demand for accountability stems, in part, from the new defense secretary, Robert Gates. He seems less inclined than Rumsfeld to tolerate snafus. "The care and welfare of our wounded men and women in uniform demand the highest standard of excellence and commitment that we can muster as a government," Gates said Thursday. "When this standard is not met, I will insist on swift and direct corrective action and, where appropriate, accountability up the chain of command."
There is more than a handful of people inside the Pentagon who wonder whether the new boss will ever apply the same standard to those actually waging the war.
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1595473,00.html
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3/2/2007, 10:54 am
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
The following article from the New York Times sort of “wraps up and recaps” the situation as I’ve been explaining it up to now. Although it is still not the end of the story in and of itself, it shows the good news that politicians rather than military men are now taking the heat that they earned and deserve, almost as if Defense Secretary Gates himself has been reading the articles and comments in this particular thread (and I’m sure that Namvet2 and his compatriots, along with members of other Veterans associations who read this board, have been flooding Mr. Gates’ office with letters and E-mails).
Please read this article thoroughly, paying particular attention to the boldface emphases that I’ve added, and then either read or re-read the foregoing posts in this thread, and I’m sure you’ll all agree that there is good reason for especially the troops and us veterans to celebrate these and coming victories over the involved politicians and bureaucrats.
Joseph
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March 3, 2007
Army Secretary Ousted in Furor on Hospital Care
By DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, March 2 — Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey was forced to resign Friday over the handling of revelations that wounded soldiers were receiving shabby and slow treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Even as the grim-faced defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, announced Mr. Harvey’s dismissal, the Army put a new general in charge of the hospital, the second change of command in two days, and a clear signal that Mr. Gates wanted a clean break from the status quo.
Earlier, the White House had announced that President Bush would appoint a bipartisan commission to examine the medical treatment provided to wounded service members, both by the Defense Department and by the Veterans Administration.
“I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation,” Mr. Gates told reporters. “Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems.”
A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates had demanded Mr. Harvey’s resignation because he was displeased that Mr. Harvey on Thursday, in dismissing the commander of Walter Reed, had temporarily named Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley to take command. General Kiley, the Army’s top medical officer, had earlier appeared to play down the problems at Walter Reed, where he was in command until 2004.
Mr. Gates’s aggressiveness in addressing the problem has surprised many officials in the Pentagon who are still getting used to his style two months into his service.
Ordered by Mr. Gates to get an acceptable new commander in place by the end of the day, the Army announced late Friday that Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, a veteran Army doctor and the brother of the current Army chief of staff, would take over command for Walter Reed.
In his weekly radio address, taped on Friday for broadcast on Saturday morning, Mr. Bush said, “This is unacceptable to me, it is unacceptable to our country, and it’s not going to continue.” The White House released a transcript without the usual embargo on its publication.
White House officials said the review would examine soldiers’ medical treatment starting when they were wounded, as they were moved to Defense Department hospitals and as they received care in Veterans Administration facilities after leaving the armed services.
The White House commission seemed to overlap in at least some respects with a separate panel announced by Mr. Gates last week that he said had authority to examine living conditions, problems getting prompt care and any other issues at Walter Reed and other military-run hospitals the panel chose to examine.
Officials said the White House commission was likely to make a broader review and take longer with its investigation than the Pentagon panel, which has a 45-day deadline. Mr. Bush planned to name his commission’s members next week.
House and Senate committees too, are planning hearings on the matter next week. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Friday that it was issuing a subpoena to Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who had been in command of the hospital since last August before his firing this week. The panel has scheduled a hearing at Walter Reed on Monday.
The committee also made public an internal hospital memorandum written last September that warned that an Army decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed was causing an exodus of experienced career personnel and putting patient care “at risk of mission failure.”
The scandal at Walter Reed is particularly embarrassing to the administration because many top officials had visited injured troops there. Although Mr. Bush had visited Walter Reed several times, his spokesman, Tony Snow, said last month that the president had learned about the situation from the newspaper and that he had given orders to “find out what the problem is and fix it.”
Army officials have defended the treatment provided to most patients at Walter Reed, especially the most serious cases, those admitted to inpatient wards on its campus a few miles from the center of Washington.
But the administration has been unable to explain why adequate improvements at Walter Reed’s nearby satellite facilities used to house outpatients were not made before the shoddy conditions were disclosed last month in a series of articles in The Washington Post. And the furor is unlikely to abate soon.
Mr. Harvey, the senior civilian official overseeing the Army, joined the Pentagon in 2004 after a long career as an engineer working mainly for defense contractors. He was an executive with the Westinghouse Corporation from 1969 to 1997.
In a speech last year, he said improved efficiency could reduce both the federal work force and the number of contractors.
But the House committee leaders said that at Walter Reed, hiring a contractor had resulted in a steep decline in the number of people providing services, from 300 in early 2006 to fewer than 60 last month.
An Army spokesman, Paul Boyce, said that “didn’t help” efforts over the last year to improve conditions for patients in Building 18, the dilapidated 50-room former hotel across the street from Walter Reed where outpatients are housed. Before rushed renovations were made last month, the building had moldy walls, stained carpets and infestations of rats and ****roaches.
Walter Reed officials have also acknowledged that the large number of wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan, currently around 650 patients and outpatients, has taxed doctors, nurses and other care providers and forced them to rely more heavily on overflow facilities.
General Kiley, who was the commander of Walter Reed from 2002 to 2004, left when he was appointed Army surgeon general. On a tour of the outpatient facilities for reporters last month, he took issue with the way the conditions were portrayed in some accounts.
“While we have some issues here, this is not a horrific, catastrophic failure at Walter Reed,” he said. “I mean these are not good, but you saw rooms that look perfectly acceptable, you saw the day rooms with the pool tables and plasma screen TVs, and we’re working every day to make those rooms better.”
But those comments and others did not please Mr. Gates, aides said. Even though he issued a statement Thursday endorsing the decision to remove General Weightman, he was not aware that the Army had chosen General Kiley to be the acting commander, an appointment that lasted just one day.
“It could have been almost anybody but Kiley,” said a senior Pentagon official, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Mr. Gate’s thinking. Referring to General Kiley’s service as the hospital commander, he added: “Some of this may well have developed and even started on his watch. And his comments also demonstrated a certain insensitivity.”
General Schoomaker, 58, the new commander, had been commander of the Army’s Medical Research and Material Command at Fort Detrick, Md. His brother, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff who is stepping down next month, was not involved in the decision to select him, the senior Pentagon official said.
In a visit to the outpatient facility last month before it was fixed up, Mr. Harvey called the conditions inexcusable. But he went on to blame the situation on noncommissioned officers, known as N.C.O.’s. “We had some N.C.O.’s who weren’t doing their job, period,” Mr. Harvey said.
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3/2/2007, 9:23 pm
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Incog4
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
quote:
Joseph Sarandos wrote:
The following article from the New York Times sort of “wraps up and recaps” the situation as I’ve been explaining it up to now. Although it is still not the end of the story in and of itself, it shows the good news that politicians rather than military men are now taking the heat that they earned and deserve, almost as if Defense Secretary Gates himself has been reading the articles and comments in this particular thread (and I’m sure that Namvet2 and his compatriots, along with members of other Veterans associations who read this board, have been flooding Mr. Gates’ office with letters and E-mails).
Please read this article thoroughly, paying particular attention to the boldface emphases that I’ve added, and then either read or re-read the foregoing posts in this thread, and I’m sure you’ll all agree that there is good reason for especially the troops and us veterans to celebrate these and coming victories over the involved politicians and bureaucrats.
Joseph
Spot on, Joseph!
I extend thanks to Greg (Namvet2) and his guys, along with any other orgs, for "holding the politicians' feet to the flames" with their letter-writing and petitioning campaigns in the names of the active-duty troops and us vets.
Because you didn't come right out and say it, although I'm certain that you feel the same, I also extend great thanks to the Washington Post for investigating and first reporting on the horrid conditions at Walter Reed, that got this much bigger ball rolling.
And of course I thank you for keeping us informed and updated as this story progressed.
As for Bush, all I have are jeers for him, since it's now plainly obvious that he became politically forced to side with us, even though he personally knew about the situation and circumstances all along.
A/G
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3/2/2007, 10:11 pm
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NamVet2
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
Chief, you said:
"...(and I’m sure that Namvet2 and his compatriots, along with members of other Veterans associations who read this board, have been flooding Mr. Gates’ office with letters and E-mails)."
As I've explained before, that's what we do in many cases, my friend. It's our labor of love, and our input always has at least some mild, but often drastic, effects upon the thinking and actions of the "decision-makers" in the administration and the Pentagon.
As I've also explained, having a scarce few boards like yours helps us greatly in our efforts, since they provide "one stop shopping" in terms of reference materials that are otherwise scattered throughout the internet, and since original ideas and commentary by men like you and Aaron "add spice" to our email discussions.
In this immediate case, I'm absolutely certain that our input has had drastic effects that changed the course of actions by the involved politicians.
I heartily agree with you that we have good reasons to "celebrate and applaud the victories" that we helped to bring about, and I'm sure that all of us agree with Aaron that the Washington Post deserves most of the credit and most of the thanks from the troops and us vets.
Have a nice Sunday,
Greg
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3/4/2007, 8:17 am
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
Wow! I guarantee that you will be, as I was, “shocked and awed” by the revelations in this newest article (today’s) by the Washington Post. I’m posting it verbatim with my emphasis added to the “high points” as I see them.
Joseph
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/03/AR2007030301414.html
Walter Reed Changes Planned
Nonmedical General To Be Named as Deputy Commander
By Josh White and Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 4, 2007; A04
Army officials plan to revise the command structure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, installing a nonmedical general officer as deputy commander to ensure that administrative operations run smoothly, in the wake of reports of serious problems with outpatient care at the facility, officials said yesterday.
A one-star general -- who has not yet been identified -- will work with Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, a physician who was named on Friday to head Walter Reed, according to two defense officials. The new deputy will be a general who will bring a nonmedical eye to the operation to "make it run like it's supposed to run," said one Army official familiar with the decision.
Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, has also directed that an infantry officer -- one who recently served in Iraq -- assume the leadership of a new unit at Walter Reed called the "Wounded Warrior Transition Brigade," whose specific aim is to take care of outpatients. The brigade will address problems such as those identified in a series of Washington Post reports about substandard conditions and bureaucratic tangles that affected the care of injured soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The changes will allow commanders to provide direct organizational leadership without any other distraction," said Brig. Gen. Anthony A. Cucolo III, the Army's top spokesman.
Since the problems at Walter Reed were made public, the Army has begun refurbishing Building 18, an off-campus facility where dozens of outpatients stay, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman was relieved as Walter Reed commander, and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey resigned under pressure from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Congressional hearings on Walter Reed are scheduled to begin tomorrow. Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the Army's surgeon general, is expected to face tough questioning about the facility. Kiley commanded Walter Reed until 2004, when he became the Army's top doctor.
Also yesterday, the Army released a statement indicating Weightman acted upon a warning last year from a subordinate about a shortage of workers at Walter Reed and resolved the critical issues that were raised. Col. Peter Garibaldi, the Walter Reed garrison commander, issued a statement through the Army to follow up on an internal memorandum he wrote in September.
In that memo, released publicly Friday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Garibaldi warned that "patient care services are at risk of mission failure" because of staff shortages brought on by the privatization of the hospital's support workforce.
Garibaldi said yesterday that Weightman "evaluated the situation and recognized its importance. Consequently, all of three critical issues I highlighted were resolved."
On Friday, Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who heads the panel's national security subcommittee, cited Garibaldi's memo as raising "a new dimension to the problems at Walter Reed."
Tierney said Friday that he intends to ask Army officials at tomorrow's hearing, about the memo and the reasons that the workforce was privatized.
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3/4/2007, 9:37 am
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