JK is responding to the story about the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  According to a statement released earlier this afternoon, he is joining with Senators Obama and McCaskill in introducing legislation aimed at improving conditions at the WRAMC. The focus of the proposed legislation is assisting patients in acquiring the counseling and rehabilitation services that they need.

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced today that he will co-sponsor legislation to improve the lives of recovering veterans at Walter Reed and other medical centers by eliminating paperwork and improving physical conditions. Kerry also said he would explore options for directing new funding to Walter Reed and to make immediate improvements to the buildings where veterans are housed.

Kerry said he was “saddened” by a recent Washington Post series exposing poor sanitary conditions and other hurdles faced by injured veterans returning to the states after service in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with a story in the Army Times about 15 month delays facing vets seeking a physical evaluation. The sponsors of the legislation are Sens. Obama and McCaskill.

The legislation that Kerry is co-sponsoring would do the following:

• Simplify the paperwork process for recovering soldiers
• Improve the ratio of caseworkers to recovering soldiers
• Increase the training of caseworkers
• Require more frequent IG inspections of hospital facilities and standards of care
• Establish timelines and benchmarks for repairs to substandard facilities
• Provide recovering soldiers with psychological counseling
• Require regular reporting to Congress on:
  • the total number of recovering soldiers at military hospitals
  • the number of caseworkers
  • the average waiting time for treatment
  • the number of suicide attempts, accidental deaths or drug overdoses

The Army Times published an article today titled “Wounded and Waiting”.

They tell another story of Walter Reed and the Veterans Administration and how they are overwhelmed by telling the story of Pvt. Robert Van Antwerp. The story points out that:

Soldiers go to VA to try for more benefits, but the department had a staggering 400,000-case backup on new claims in fiscal 2006, according to VA.

For that reason, Van Antwerp faces another wait at VA. Cases there have an average of a one-year wait. And this is important because it may take a while before Van Antwerp, who must carry a notebook to remember his daily chores, can make his way back to the work world.

Perhaps more important, many of the soldiers leaving Walter Reed face post-traumatic stress disorder. Studies have shown that if soldiers receive treatment within a year, they fare much better.

Van Antwerp has been a patient at Walter Reed since November 2005. He is one of 704 outpatient soldiers who are injured or ill and are waiting to make their way through the red tape of the medical evaluation board process at the medical center, according to officials there.

  <!-more-> Then they go onto tell the stories of other soldiers at Walter Reed which confirm the information in the Washington Post stories.

In a classroom at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the first sergeant for the medical holding company lined up three soldiers to talk about their experience with the physical evaluation board. Soldiers going through the physical evaluation board process report to the medical holding company for accountability, to be assigned jobs that work with their injuries, and to have a first sergeant and company commander who can speak up for them when they’re having problems.

In August 2004, as Spc. Karl Unbehagan, 29, reported to his new unit at Fort Benning, Ga., he developed intense migraine headaches. Doctors told the infantry soldier he was not used to the humid weather. A couple of months later, they ran a CAT scan.

“I had a tumor in the third ventricle of my brain,” Unbehagan explained, pointing to the shunt that runs from the scar on his head down to his stomach to relieve the pressure in his brain. “They realized it had nothing to do with the weather.”

The physical evaluation board rated him at zero percent, saying the tumor was a pre-existing condition. Unbehagan has been in the Army for four years, and his doctors found no proof the tumor existed before he joined, he said.

Rather than face the civilian world with no benefits, he talked with a free counselor from Disabled American Veterans who told him how to fight the discharge, reclassify as an electronics and satellite repair specialist, and stay in the Army. The process took eight months, which he spent in the medical hold company.

His board was restarted three times: First, his medical profile was lost. Then, somebody forgot to counsel him — a required part of the process. And finally, no one made his file active after he changed his job field, so no one saved him a slot at the repair school, he said.

link to full story

JK spoke out today:

“We owe our returning veterans a debt of gratitude, not sub-standard treatment at an overcrowded medical facility. The Administration has consistently talked a big game but shortchanged the needs of veterans. How can the president talk about a troop escalation in Iraq while failing to keep faith with the Iraq War veterans we’ve already brought home?

Brave men who have been blinded or lost a limb in Iraq should not be sitting in moldy, mouse-infested buildings. Period.

It’s unacceptable and this Congress needs to do something about it.”

Yes, it does and thanks to those taking immediate action to remedy this failure to care for our troops.