Text 27299, 53 rader
Skriven 2007-02-18 14:11:32 av Bob Sakowski
Ärende: support the troops
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WP: Battling system at Walter Reed
Wounded soldiers face neglect, frustration at Army¢s top medical facility
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
The Washington Post
Updated: 5:43 a.m. ET Feb 18, 2007

WASHINGTON - Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of
the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When
the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see
the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building,
constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out.
Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches,
stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan
expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical
Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear,
nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of
the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed
hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines
as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained
combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something
else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically
damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some
Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment
or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned
to active duty.

They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back
damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have
grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed
17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into
dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay
is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.

Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan's, but the despair of
Building 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed's treatment of the
wounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans aid
groups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members interviewed by two
Washington Post reporters, who spent more than four months visiting the
outpatient world without the knowledge or permission of Walter Reed
officials. Many agreed to be quoted by name; others said they feared Army
retribution if they complained publicly.
[snip]

URL:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17160574/

F*cking republican scum.
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