There's not a link on this, but I'll let it go this time.
I think - hope, anyway - that most people know that Building 18 isn't representative of Walter Reed Hospital. The place is actually a national treasure. I've been there many times. I've gotten consistently excellent care and the facilities have always been spotless.
When I first became a participant in the military medical system we had regular sick calls and military hospitals and doctors dotted the landscape. Sick call was something like a cattle call, and the attention us young soldiers got wasn't what you'd call the most meticulous.
As a result of the 60s, fewer doctors were willing to enter military service and we saw many more contract doctors added to the mix. The Base Realignment and Closure madness saw all those hospitals consolidated over the years to achieve "ecnomies of scale," which is management talk for putting all your eggs in single baskets so you have only a few single points of failure. So now we have a military medical system that's scaled to peacetime, not to mass casualties - the piddlin' casualty loads of Iraq and Afghanistan actually strain the system that Congress and management hath wrought. Big Wally is actually due to go away, to be combined with Bethesda Naval Hospital under the latest BRAC scheme, and its very valuable hundred acres of D.C. sold off, probably to a politician's relatives.
I caught pneumonia a few years ago and was admitted to Kimbrough Army Hospital for a few days. There I received the very best care I've ever had in any hospital, anywhere. Kimbrough's now just a clinic, with no inpatient treatment, no emergency room, no walk-ins, so if I get a serious illness again I can add to the strain on Walter Reed or I can go to my local civilian hospital and sit in line with the Medicaid patients. On the plus side, I don't pay as much for my health insurance as most people. On the minus side, I stayed in the Army for 20 years on the understanding that I'd receive military health care for the remainder of my life - and not pay a premium for it. Nobody ever asked which level of Tricare coverage I had in Vietnam.
There's a thorough housecleaning going on at Walter Reed that borders on a witch hunt already. In fairness, we should hollering for the heads of the Congressional oversight that was the genesis for the underlying mess. A crummy building or two isn't the problem; a poorly scaled military medical system is. |
I have had enough and am going to give my perspective on the news about Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Please understand that I am speaking for myself and I am responsible for my thoughts alone. The news media and politicians are making it sound like Walter Reed is a terrible place and the staff here has been abusing our brave wounded soldiers; what a bunch of bull!
I am completing my 24th year of service in the Army next month so you decide for yourself if I have the experience to write about this topic. I have been the senior clinical chaplain at Walter Reed for four years and will leave to go back to the infantry this summer. I supervise the chaplain staff inside Walter Reed that cares for the 200 inpatients, the 650+ daily outpatients from the war who come to us for medical care, the 4000+ staff, and over 3000 soldiers and their families that come for clinical appointments daily. Walter Reed has cared for over 5500 wounded from the war. I cannot count the number of sick and non-battle injured that have come through over that timeframe. The staff at this facility has done an incredible job at the largest US military medical center with the worst injured of the war. We have cared for over 400 amputees and their families. I am privileged to serve the wounded, their families, and our staff.
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