Is Walter Reed Hospital really Hell?
So last May the Washington Post did an expose regarding the lack of essentially every damn thing at Walter Reed in Bethesda.
Lack of bed space forcing needy disabled vets out of inpatient care before they were really ready. One fellow with permanent severe brain injuries was being shipped home, where he would have to travel 200 miles to the nearest VA for doctors appointments, his condition requires almost continuous evaluations for treatment to be effective.
Husbands and wives, mothers and fathers being offered the "opportunity" to act as full time nursing staff for their wounded service spouse or child because the facility didn't have funding to hire enough trained personnel to care for the unanticipated influx of patients.
The total lack of ANY mental health services for the combat wounded, but there was funding for the full in-hospital bar which opened at nine AM everyday.
The admin requiring visibly disabled patients to avoid photo op events at the facility including memorial services for their own fellow patients.
These were just the high points from the first in the series of reports which ran through May into the middle of April 2006. Also these are just the high points I recalled off the top of my head while typing this up.
But what the Washington Post failed to report on at all was recently discussed in the blog of a long term patient at the Hospital who personally participated in some thing which for a disabled vet probably separated from loved ones for the foreseeable future I think might be bordering on engineered emotional abuse...
This guy, while under care at Walter Reed, was assigned to a work detail where he was tasked to sort, parcel, stamp for return to sender, and hand type an explanatory note for all the Christmas cards the hospital refuses to deliver to patients during the holidays. This was still his assigned full time job through last May when the Washington Post story broke, and he is confident those cards and notes are still being sorted through by disabled Army personnel right now.
His story has all the details so I just linked it but, I started thinking about all the millions of cards and notes and letters sent by all the school groups and church groups and folks who just wanted to let some soldier, sailor, airman, or marine they were being thought of , even hurt and far from home at the holidays. And because of a bureaucratic decision made for no legitimate reason anyone can give, these men and women are never getting those thoughts and prayers and points of contact and are in fact forced by regulations to return them undelivered.
The post office has to deliver any mail sent through their system by law, and the hospital has PRIVATE CONTRACTORS to sort and deliver and deal with all this but they can't (won't) hire enough handlers, in spite of the fact that that is specifically what they are getting paid for in the first place.
I read the blog today and started thinking about all the heat the VA and W. Reed got in April and then I started thinking there isn't a light bright enough to shine into all the cracks in the cluster fuck this administration and this war has created/exploited. I think there are currently thousands of nameable indictable offenders profiting and advancing at the expense of the rest of this country and nothing will ever be done about any of it. I think about this a lot, probably more than is healthy and it is discouraging to say the very least.
http://thisvetslife.com/?p=187
Might not seem too bad at first blush, but it is a tip of the iceberg kind of thing which gets me crazy yelling mad.
Lack of bed space forcing needy disabled vets out of inpatient care before they were really ready. One fellow with permanent severe brain injuries was being shipped home, where he would have to travel 200 miles to the nearest VA for doctors appointments, his condition requires almost continuous evaluations for treatment to be effective.
Husbands and wives, mothers and fathers being offered the "opportunity" to act as full time nursing staff for their wounded service spouse or child because the facility didn't have funding to hire enough trained personnel to care for the unanticipated influx of patients.
The total lack of ANY mental health services for the combat wounded, but there was funding for the full in-hospital bar which opened at nine AM everyday.
The admin requiring visibly disabled patients to avoid photo op events at the facility including memorial services for their own fellow patients.
These were just the high points from the first in the series of reports which ran through May into the middle of April 2006. Also these are just the high points I recalled off the top of my head while typing this up.
But what the Washington Post failed to report on at all was recently discussed in the blog of a long term patient at the Hospital who personally participated in some thing which for a disabled vet probably separated from loved ones for the foreseeable future I think might be bordering on engineered emotional abuse...
This guy, while under care at Walter Reed, was assigned to a work detail where he was tasked to sort, parcel, stamp for return to sender, and hand type an explanatory note for all the Christmas cards the hospital refuses to deliver to patients during the holidays. This was still his assigned full time job through last May when the Washington Post story broke, and he is confident those cards and notes are still being sorted through by disabled Army personnel right now.
His story has all the details so I just linked it but, I started thinking about all the millions of cards and notes and letters sent by all the school groups and church groups and folks who just wanted to let some soldier, sailor, airman, or marine they were being thought of , even hurt and far from home at the holidays. And because of a bureaucratic decision made for no legitimate reason anyone can give, these men and women are never getting those thoughts and prayers and points of contact and are in fact forced by regulations to return them undelivered.
The post office has to deliver any mail sent through their system by law, and the hospital has PRIVATE CONTRACTORS to sort and deliver and deal with all this but they can't (won't) hire enough handlers, in spite of the fact that that is specifically what they are getting paid for in the first place.
I read the blog today and started thinking about all the heat the VA and W. Reed got in April and then I started thinking there isn't a light bright enough to shine into all the cracks in the cluster fuck this administration and this war has created/exploited. I think there are currently thousands of nameable indictable offenders profiting and advancing at the expense of the rest of this country and nothing will ever be done about any of it. I think about this a lot, probably more than is healthy and it is discouraging to say the very least.
http://thisvetslife.com/?p=187
Might not seem too bad at first blush, but it is a tip of the iceberg kind of thing which gets me crazy yelling mad.