FOR YEARS, WALTER Reed Army Medical Center has been the symbol of military health care. And these days, that’s what everyone is afraid of.
Congress recently opened hearings on conditions at the flagship Army hospital, which had been described as substandard in a series of articles by The Washington Post. The scandal has already cost the job of Army Secretary Francis Harvey and raised worries that the military’s health care system is falling down elsewhere.
“To think that men and women are serving their country in the most honorable and courageous way possible and all we give them is a dilapidated, rat-infested, run-down building to recover is a disgrace,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that was reported by The Associated Press. “My fear is that Walter Reed is just the tip of the iceberg.”
So far, everyone has been lining up to see just how bad things really are. At last count, the hospital had been placed at the nexus of three investigations — one by the Army, one by Congress and one by a White House commission to be announced.
And yet, there is a bright side, although a somewhat ironic one. By comparison, the Veterans Administration is starting to look really good.
It’s been somewhat traditional for politicians and the press to complain about the VA. The biggest one came last year, when it was found the VA was basing its health-care costs for veterans on 2002 data. Care has often been slow in coming, thanks to long waiting lists.
But lined up beside Walter Reed, the VA comes across like Florence Nightingale. ABC News anchorman Bob Woodruff praised their care of retired veterans, saying only that they were less skilled with complex problems such as brain injuries. Kansas’ newest member of Congress, Rep. Nancy Boyda, toured the two VA hospitals in her district and found them clean and safe.
“I needed to be absolutely certain that Kansas veterans were being treated with the respect they have earned,” Boyda said.
That’s a good way of putting it. Our veterans have served us well. They deserve to be served well in return, both in uniform and after leaving the service.
And right now, it’s unclear which is more disgusting — the alleged conditions at Walter Reed or the fact that it took something like this to make Washington pay attention.