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Swift Action Promised at Walter Reed
Building 18, a former hotel across Georgia Avenue from Walter Reed, now serves as overflow housing for the medical center.
(By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
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The secretaries of the Army and Navy announced that they had begun a broader review of Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center and that an independent review group will be formed to investigate outpatient care and administrative processes. Walter Reed is set to close in 2011, and the naval facility in Bethesda will be expanded to handle the additional wounded.
Walter Reed's fixes are unlikely to immediately quiet the criticism from members of Congress, who received a flood of calls from the public and veterans groups asking how the problems could have been unknown to officials -- some of whom regularly visit Walter Reed.
"We need to bring the Army people in and say, 'What the hell is going on?' " said Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked the House Armed Services Committee to investigate outpatient care at Walter Reed. "The treatment reported in The Post of our troops and our veterans is disgraceful," Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said.
Several senators, including presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former presidential candidate John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), announced they are co-sponsoring legislation to simplify the paperwork process for recovering soldiers and increase case managers and psychological counselors. The bill would also require the Army to report more regularly to Congress and the inspector general about the living conditions of injured soldiers.
Jeff Miller (Fla.), the ranking Republican on the House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee on health, said: "The neglect being experienced by some wounded service members is outrageous. The Defense Department is never shy about asking for supplemental funds for operations and equipment; I cannot imagine why housing for recuperating wounded would not be a similarly high priority."
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), former chairman of what was then known as the House Government Reform Committee, urged the committee to hold a hearing at Walter Reed to give members an "invaluable firsthand look" at how the Army is processing the wounded. "Improvements to date have been episodic, and in some case, short-lived," Davis said in a statement.
Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.
