Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At US Army's Top Medical Facility
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I have been to WRMAC several times on visits but I never went to any of the med hold facilities.I am sorry that I never did.While I agree with S-Baker as to the quality of the medical staff,but I have long had problems with how the Medical Corps handles administration and this story is all about poor management/administration. I think my feeling is borne out by the decision to bring in combat arms officers/NCO's to run the med hold side of the house.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/TNSwoundedbrigade070308/
New brigade to help soldiers at Walter Reed
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Mar 9, 2007 14:04:13 EST
The Army’s vice chief of staff announced a new brigade and a new general officer position to help solve problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
All of the new positions, including 122 new platoon sergeants in the medical hold units, who will form the backbone of a new Wounded Warrior Transition Brigade, have been filled by combat arms soldiers.
“We’re an Army at war and we demand an awful lot of our medical professionals,” Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody said during a media roundtable at Walter Reed. “We need to let them concentrate on the medical thing.”
Combat arms soldiers, Cody said, have the right level of leadership to take charge of the new brigade.
Cody also announced a new position: deputy commanding general of Walter Reed. That officer will be specifically assigned to help soldiers make it through the outpatient process at Walter Reed. Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, who most recently served as deputy commander of the U.S. Army Armor Center at Fort Knox, Ky., will be the first to fill that position.
The Wounded Warrior Transition Brigade will replace the medical command overseeing the medical hold and holdover units at Walter Reed. Col. Terrence McKenrick will head the new brigade, with Command Sgt. Major Jeffrey Hartless serving as McKenrick’s senior enlisted soldier.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/TNSwoundedbrigade070308/
New brigade to help soldiers at Walter Reed
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Mar 9, 2007 14:04:13 EST
The Army’s vice chief of staff announced a new brigade and a new general officer position to help solve problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
All of the new positions, including 122 new platoon sergeants in the medical hold units, who will form the backbone of a new Wounded Warrior Transition Brigade, have been filled by combat arms soldiers.
“We’re an Army at war and we demand an awful lot of our medical professionals,” Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody said during a media roundtable at Walter Reed. “We need to let them concentrate on the medical thing.”
Combat arms soldiers, Cody said, have the right level of leadership to take charge of the new brigade.
Cody also announced a new position: deputy commanding general of Walter Reed. That officer will be specifically assigned to help soldiers make it through the outpatient process at Walter Reed. Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, who most recently served as deputy commander of the U.S. Army Armor Center at Fort Knox, Ky., will be the first to fill that position.
The Wounded Warrior Transition Brigade will replace the medical command overseeing the medical hold and holdover units at Walter Reed. Col. Terrence McKenrick will head the new brigade, with Command Sgt. Major Jeffrey Hartless serving as McKenrick’s senior enlisted soldier.
Blackadder1916
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The latest casualty of this tale.
Army Surgeon General Forced To Retire
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/walter_reed
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer March 12, 2007
The Army forced its surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, to retire, officials said Monday, the third high-level official to lose his job over poor outpatient treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Kiley, who headed Walter Reed from 2002 to 2004, has been a lightning rod for criticism over conditions at the Army's premier medical facility, including during congressional hearings last week. Soldiers and their families have complained about substandard living conditions and bureaucratic delays at the hospital overwhelmed with wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kiley submitted his retirement request on Sunday, the Army said in a statement.
"We must move quickly to fill this position — this leader will have a key role in moving the way forward in meeting the needs of our wounded warriors," Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said in an Army statement.
Geren asked Kiley to retire, said a senior defense official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was not involved in the decision to ask Kiley to retire, the official said.
Kiley's removal underscored how the fallout over Walter Reed's shoddy conditions has yet to subside. Instead, the controversy has mushroomed into questions about how wounded soldiers and veterans are treated throughout the medical systems run by the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs and has become a major preoccupation of a Bush administration already struggling to defend the unpopular war in Iraq.
"I submitted my retirement because I think it is in the best interest of the Army," Kiley said in Monday's Army statement. He said he wanted to allow officials to "focus completely on the way ahead."
Amid the focus on Walter Reed, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson on Monday ordered his department's clinics to provide details about their physical condition by next week to determine if squalid conditions found at Walter Reed exist elsewhere.
Nicholson has been under pressure to reduce claims backlogs and improve coordination at the VA's vast network of 1,400 hospitals and clinics, which provide supplemental care and rehabilitation to 5.8 million veterans.
The conditions at Walter Reed were detailed last month by The Washington Post. Since then, Gates has forced Army Secretary Francis Harvey to resign and Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who was in charge of Walter Reed since August 2006, was ousted from his post.
A number of investigations have been ordered.
President Bush appointed a bipartisan commission to investigate problems at the nation's military and veteran hospitals, and separate reviews are under way by the Pentagon, the Army and an interagency task force led by Nicholson.
In a briefing Thursday for reporters at the medical center, top Army officials said they have moved to fix some of the problems at Walter Reed.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody said that officials have added caseworkers, financial specialists and others to work with soldiers' families on problems they have related to the injuries such as getting loans or help with income taxes.
Army Surgeon General Forced To Retire
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/walter_reed
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer March 12, 2007
The Army forced its surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, to retire, officials said Monday, the third high-level official to lose his job over poor outpatient treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Kiley, who headed Walter Reed from 2002 to 2004, has been a lightning rod for criticism over conditions at the Army's premier medical facility, including during congressional hearings last week. Soldiers and their families have complained about substandard living conditions and bureaucratic delays at the hospital overwhelmed with wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kiley submitted his retirement request on Sunday, the Army said in a statement.
"We must move quickly to fill this position — this leader will have a key role in moving the way forward in meeting the needs of our wounded warriors," Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said in an Army statement.
Geren asked Kiley to retire, said a senior defense official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was not involved in the decision to ask Kiley to retire, the official said.
Kiley's removal underscored how the fallout over Walter Reed's shoddy conditions has yet to subside. Instead, the controversy has mushroomed into questions about how wounded soldiers and veterans are treated throughout the medical systems run by the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs and has become a major preoccupation of a Bush administration already struggling to defend the unpopular war in Iraq.
"I submitted my retirement because I think it is in the best interest of the Army," Kiley said in Monday's Army statement. He said he wanted to allow officials to "focus completely on the way ahead."
Amid the focus on Walter Reed, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson on Monday ordered his department's clinics to provide details about their physical condition by next week to determine if squalid conditions found at Walter Reed exist elsewhere.
Nicholson has been under pressure to reduce claims backlogs and improve coordination at the VA's vast network of 1,400 hospitals and clinics, which provide supplemental care and rehabilitation to 5.8 million veterans.
The conditions at Walter Reed were detailed last month by The Washington Post. Since then, Gates has forced Army Secretary Francis Harvey to resign and Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who was in charge of Walter Reed since August 2006, was ousted from his post.
A number of investigations have been ordered.
President Bush appointed a bipartisan commission to investigate problems at the nation's military and veteran hospitals, and separate reviews are under way by the Pentagon, the Army and an interagency task force led by Nicholson.
In a briefing Thursday for reporters at the medical center, top Army officials said they have moved to fix some of the problems at Walter Reed.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody said that officials have added caseworkers, financial specialists and others to work with soldiers' families on problems they have related to the injuries such as getting loans or help with income taxes.
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http://walterreed.blogspot.com/
I found this blog written by a soldier at Walter Reed.
I found this blog written by a soldier at Walter Reed.
Blackadder1916
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Top Army medic quits over troop care problems
Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:08PM EDT
http://www.asia.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1236106420070312
If MG Pollack is confirmed as the new US Army Surgeon General, she will be the first non-doctor to hold that position (she is a nurse). http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/leaders/pollock.html
Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:08PM EDT
http://www.asia.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1236106420070312
If MG Pollack is confirmed as the new US Army Surgeon General, she will be the first non-doctor to hold that position (she is a nurse). http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/leaders/pollock.html
Blackadder1916
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In agreement here, but it looks like "wait and shoot".geo said:
http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/03/12/2225-army-surgeon-general-to-retire/
Interesting follow-up from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-15-walter-reed-vip_N.htm (More info and photos in article)
VIP ward at Walter Reed gets scrutiny By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Disclosures of substandard housing for troops treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are prompting Congress to investigate whether the Army is running a plush ward at the complex for VIPs at the expense of ordinary war casualties.
House investigators are asking "if the allocations of resources is in any way adversely impacting the treatment of the troops," Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., told USA TODAY in response to inquiries about the six-suite ward. Tierney leads a House subcommittee investigating allegations of poor care at Walter Reed. "Our nation's military, our returning heroes, are the true VIPs," he said.
The large, comfortable suites on the hospital's top floor are reserved for the president, the vice president, federal judges, members of Congress and the Cabinet, high-ranking military officials and even foreign dignitaries and their spouses. The only enlisted members of the military who are eligible to stay there are recipients of the Medal of Honor.
The suites have carpeted floors, antique furniture and fine china in the dining rooms. That's a stark contrast to mold- and mice-ridden housing that some wounded troops had been found to be living in.
The Washington Post disclosed complaints about housing conditions for war wounded at Walter Reed last month, triggering some immediate repairs by the Army and investigations by Congress, the White House and the Pentagon. The secretary of the Army, Army surgeon general and the hospital commander have been fired or forced to leave office.
The ward is staffed by 21 nurses, doctors and clinicians. It averages 72 inpatients and 2,600 outpatients a year, said administrator Frances Cheever.
Cheever said the staff-to-patient ratio is the same in the rest of Walter Reed as in the special ward.
The Eisenhower Executive Nursing Suite, also known as Ward 72, features heightened security, including bullet-proof windows and secure telephone lines. Among the other touches are flat-panel televisions and curio cabinets filled with gifts from foreign leaders. The ward is named for former president Dwight Eisenhower, who died at Walter Reed in 1969.
Army spokeswoman Cynthia Vaughan said it costs $950,000 a year to run the ward, or less than two-tenths of 1% of Walter Reed's annual expenses. But she acknowledged that salaries for nurses and other medical personnel come out of the general budget.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031200544.html (More details in article)
Surgeon General Of Army Steps Down
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; Page A01
Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the Army's surgeon general, agreed to step down from his position after weeks of intense public criticism stemming from revelations about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, defense officials said yesterday.
Though there had been repeated calls for Kiley to resign as the Army's top doctor during hearings on Capitol Hill, he refused to step aside even as he was grilled about horrid living conditions and a tangled bureaucracy at the Army's flagship hospital. Kiley at first played down reports of problems at Walter Reed-- where he had served as commander from 2002 to 2004 -- but later was far more contrite.
Kiley submitted his retirement request on Sunday, according to an Army news release. Defense officials said Pete Geren, the acting secretary of the Army, had sought Kiley's removal in recent days. Geren has been in his new role only since last week, when he was tapped to replace Francis Harvey, who resigned as Army Secretary as the scandal began to unfold.
The Army's inspector general reported yesterday that the service is lacking in critical staff and formalized training in caring for soldiers. The inspector general also found that the Army's system for determining disability benefits is overwhelmed by the number of wounded.Army officials quickly named a temporary replacement for Kiley -- his current deputy, Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock. She will serve until an advisory board recommends a new surgeon general.
Personal Note: Lt. Gen. Kiley was an impressive speaker and leader, he will be missed by their Army.
VIP ward at Walter Reed gets scrutiny By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Disclosures of substandard housing for troops treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are prompting Congress to investigate whether the Army is running a plush ward at the complex for VIPs at the expense of ordinary war casualties.
House investigators are asking "if the allocations of resources is in any way adversely impacting the treatment of the troops," Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., told USA TODAY in response to inquiries about the six-suite ward. Tierney leads a House subcommittee investigating allegations of poor care at Walter Reed. "Our nation's military, our returning heroes, are the true VIPs," he said.
The large, comfortable suites on the hospital's top floor are reserved for the president, the vice president, federal judges, members of Congress and the Cabinet, high-ranking military officials and even foreign dignitaries and their spouses. The only enlisted members of the military who are eligible to stay there are recipients of the Medal of Honor.
The suites have carpeted floors, antique furniture and fine china in the dining rooms. That's a stark contrast to mold- and mice-ridden housing that some wounded troops had been found to be living in.
The Washington Post disclosed complaints about housing conditions for war wounded at Walter Reed last month, triggering some immediate repairs by the Army and investigations by Congress, the White House and the Pentagon. The secretary of the Army, Army surgeon general and the hospital commander have been fired or forced to leave office.
The ward is staffed by 21 nurses, doctors and clinicians. It averages 72 inpatients and 2,600 outpatients a year, said administrator Frances Cheever.
Cheever said the staff-to-patient ratio is the same in the rest of Walter Reed as in the special ward.
The Eisenhower Executive Nursing Suite, also known as Ward 72, features heightened security, including bullet-proof windows and secure telephone lines. Among the other touches are flat-panel televisions and curio cabinets filled with gifts from foreign leaders. The ward is named for former president Dwight Eisenhower, who died at Walter Reed in 1969.
Army spokeswoman Cynthia Vaughan said it costs $950,000 a year to run the ward, or less than two-tenths of 1% of Walter Reed's annual expenses. But she acknowledged that salaries for nurses and other medical personnel come out of the general budget.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031200544.html (More details in article)
Surgeon General Of Army Steps Down
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; Page A01
Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the Army's surgeon general, agreed to step down from his position after weeks of intense public criticism stemming from revelations about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, defense officials said yesterday.
Though there had been repeated calls for Kiley to resign as the Army's top doctor during hearings on Capitol Hill, he refused to step aside even as he was grilled about horrid living conditions and a tangled bureaucracy at the Army's flagship hospital. Kiley at first played down reports of problems at Walter Reed-- where he had served as commander from 2002 to 2004 -- but later was far more contrite.
Kiley submitted his retirement request on Sunday, according to an Army news release. Defense officials said Pete Geren, the acting secretary of the Army, had sought Kiley's removal in recent days. Geren has been in his new role only since last week, when he was tapped to replace Francis Harvey, who resigned as Army Secretary as the scandal began to unfold.
The Army's inspector general reported yesterday that the service is lacking in critical staff and formalized training in caring for soldiers. The inspector general also found that the Army's system for determining disability benefits is overwhelmed by the number of wounded.Army officials quickly named a temporary replacement for Kiley -- his current deputy, Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock. She will serve until an advisory board recommends a new surgeon general.
Personal Note: Lt. Gen. Kiley was an impressive speaker and leader, he will be missed by their Army.
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Have to differ with you. He wont be missed and he was hardly a leader. When the crap hit the fan a leader would have stepped up and taken full responsibility, rather than relieving MG Weightman who had only been in command for 6 months.
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this news story broke out just before i baught my ticket when i decided to leave my stint in australia.
i was going to go to america, and try to get into iraq. part of my decision in coming to canada instead. i have heard some horror stories with my time here. but this all comes from long hair flat footers. all antiwar crap.
is there any truth to canadians being mistreated?
i was going to go to america, and try to get into iraq. part of my decision in coming to canada instead. i have heard some horror stories with my time here. but this all comes from long hair flat footers. all antiwar crap.
is there any truth to canadians being mistreated?
Blackadder1916
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Weightman Takes Blame For Reed Scandal
Declining Support For War May Lower Tolerance For Bureaucracy, He Says
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/gns_weightman_032007/
Declining Support For War May Lower Tolerance For Bureaucracy, He Says
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/gns_weightman_032007/
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Quite the burden
but, with a nation at war and dissabled soldiers rolling in by the busload, there should have been more resources asked for & provided. Where was the fella that was looking after the infrastructure.
............ Or, wasn't there one? did they expect an MD to manage all aspects of running a hospital?
but, with a nation at war and dissabled soldiers rolling in by the busload, there should have been more resources asked for & provided. Where was the fella that was looking after the infrastructure.
............ Or, wasn't there one? did they expect an MD to manage all aspects of running a hospital?
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Is this just an Army problem or is it service wide ? I bring this up as I was a patient in the US Naval Regional Medical Center at Camp Penaldton and the treatment there was state of the art. In addition discussing this with a few others who have had 'hands on' experience covering quite a number of years our cumulative opinions seem to be the same. No complaints but absolute praise for the US Navy from the corpsman to cutters and hence onward to the rehabilitation experts.
Blackadder1916
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Bush Apologizes For Walter Reed Woes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Yrys
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