Who's to blame for the deplorable conditions at our nation's veteran hospitals?

it is the administration who is responsible for this mess. part of services at walter reed were given to a private company, whose CEO by the way used to work for Halliburton. that same Halliburton Vice President Dick Cheney used to work for. see its all entangled..if they really want to clear the mess they have to free walter reed first.

Who is not responsible is a better question honestly.

The military needs to make sure that these hospitals are above anything in the public sector since they serve our military heroes. The VA so that when they have to direct different people to the hospitals, they know that these people will have the best medical advances offered. The Congress, since they have to decide on military budgets. The president since he is the one that decides to go to war and deploy military in different parts of the world, and finally the secretary of defense. The ultimate responsibility is for the American taxpayer to be more well informed of consequences and difficulties throughout the Major money spending departments.

That is my impression.

I would vote for the administration being responsible, but also would add that we need a lot better accounting for these hospitals and services. Congress has failed miserably to increase the VA budget sufficiently to meet the overwhelming demand coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan. VA budget increases, as I noted elsewhere, have not even matched the increases necessary to cover inflation and staff salary increases, much less to meet the demand placed upon the system by tens of thousands of wounded who require long-term treatment and rehabilitation.

It is the government's fault. It should not be the responsibility of the NY Times to discover the conditions in our military hospitals. Leaders in Congress (both Democratic and Republican), the President, and the military all should have known about this. It is not the administration's fault. The entire government is to blame.

Who's to blame for the deplorable conditions at our nation's veteran hospitals?

Answer: We the public for not asking one single question about how the troops who are wounded in battle are treated once they return from the front.

I'll bet the families of those who have been mistreated knew about these conditions years ago, and I'll bet they complained about them. But the powers that be know what the public does and doesn't pay attention to.
Veterans have been written off once they get injured for years. My dad died from a bad blood transfusion he got in a VA hospital. He was a World War II Bronze Star winner.
If the public doesn't take this latest episode any more seriously than a juicy story to read for a few days, my point will have been proven.

I think of all the congressmen and women who have touted their visits to Walter Reed as proof that they support our troops and are compassionate. To me, this is confirmation that when our representatives visit various places they are given carefully guided tours to shield them from the truth. I fear that many of them are too willing to allow this. I would agree with Randy, who is not responsible?

I don't know anything personally about Walter Reed hospital. But I do know that my father served in the Korean War and that he worked at the VA hospital here in Ohio. He always said that they had the worse doctors and that he felt sorry for the patients there. This was long before the war in Iraq. He could have received free care there. He could have received free medicine there, too. But he told me that he wouldn't take an animal to that hospital let alone a human. Why? I do not know all the details. I was young. That comment sticks with me and it makes me wonder just how long and just how many of our VA hospitals are in bad shape?

Who is at fault? Start with the people who run the hospitals and then run up the chain of command, all of them are partly at fault.

Who's responsible? The decider.

Clark don't you mean The Amputator in Chief?

I think it is clear that no one really wants to know who is to blame, because they want to pin the blame on their opponent. Some want to blame the president for everything. (Never mind that VA hospital conditions were no better under previous administrations.) The question isn't who is to blame … we all are to blame … the question is how to make sure that it never happens again.

All of us. This was brought out (not much was done) with the production of the movie Born on the Fourth of July. This is our country, our men, our responsibility.

George and Nana, I agree with you. These politicians and administrators work for US. We should have been making sure they had a plan for taking care of the wounded and maimed. Instead, an overwhelming majority of us feel for the smoke and mirrors of the "WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" PR campaign. We SHOULD have been making sure that VA benefits were not cut in 2004. HOW do you conceivable wage a "war" on two fronts AND cut the benefits to those who put life and limb on the line?

THIS is an OUTRAGE!!!

Every declaration of war should be made to include a comprehensive plan and budget for ensuring that those who serve have EVERYTHING they need when and IF they return home including the BEST medical and mental health care plan available in this country.

My heart is broken for the families of these young men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice and received the crap end of the stick.

WE SHOULD BE ASHAMED!!

The Veterans hospitals are a federal government entity. The buck stops there.

I'd be curious to know the people who work for the VA places... Any licensed health care worker takes an oath when they acquire their license. It's part of your ethical and moral responsibilities to report these conditions and be a patient advocate. If conditions are this horrible for the people who reside at these places, why would anyone choose to WORK at these places? Why wouldn't anyone who works at these places say anything?
Seems to me like everyone always wants to sit around and point the finger but not put forth the energy to do anything about it. It's very very sad.

VA hospitals in this country have been in a deplorable state since Korea. Why should Walter Reed be any different? Merely because it is where GW goes for his annual physical? I'm sure the unit he uses is fully staffed, and all the equipment is brand new. Frankly, and believe me I ma not one to support GW, but I am certain he personally hadn't a clue(like so many other issues) It is the Army's responsibility, and beyond that, the federal gov't's .
Rebecca,
People work in "places like that" becaue they care, they want to give back and ease the burden. Don't think the grunt workers in these places are indifferent, as a general rule, they care deeply, but have grown so used to underfunding, that they "make do"...as they have for decades.

The care that 99.9% of our veterans receive at these hospitals is deplorable, along with the conditions, and the blame rests fully with the government. From the lowliest government worker all the way to the top the problems are known and they couldn't care one iota. They are more interested in sending the funding that could be used to fix the VA system overseas somewhere. There are billions of dollars that the US gov't sends to other countries and yet they, meaning those in power, keep talking about cutting this program and that program to bring down the national debt, but until they get off their collective butts and come out of their own pockets to help with this debt, that is all it will be is talk....lipservice at it's best(?), worst(?)
A good case in point about services that are available to veterans and their spouses is the "Veterans Aid and Attendance Pension" this is a VA benefit that is little known about to help with elder care of a veteran or surviving spouse of one, and the VA and the gov't are trying everything they can to make sure that word does not get around about it....want to read about it for yourself...go to:
www.veteranaid.org

" it is the administration who is responsible for this mess. part of services at walter reed were given to a private company, whose CEO by the way used to work for Halliburton. that same Halliburton Vice President Dick Cheney used to work for."
USED to work for? LMAO
I'm about to touch a very large nerve here, but . . .
I think many of these unfortunate soldiers would have been better off if medical science had simply allowed them to die.

All of those people that believed what the administration said when it said that it supports the troops. What it does is "use the troops" for its own personal agenda and to hell with them when they are no longer useful.

It is sort of like their stand on "protecting the unborn". Once the kid is born, they no longer give a damn about it.

The government is definitely to blame, though I would advise anybody here who blames our current administration to go back in time and visit this hospital and others back through the last 40 years. The state of things has been deplorable for decades, and administration after administration - including the current one - have done precious little to improve it. This is a clear case where the whole of the American political system is to blame. Let's see who steps up to finally fix this disgrace.

Welcome to the suck. It doesn't end in the field.

Michael M. is spot on. Any and all things VA have been a Neglected Stepchild of government agencies, almost since it's creation. To blame the current administration for the problem is disingenuous and politically opportunistic -- to be expected from the "Blame Bush" crowd. However, that doesn't mean that the present administration doesn't share some of the blame for not trying to fix it, however.

However, as in all things governmental, most of what's wrong can be attributed to Congressional inaction or misdeeds -- on both sides of the aisle.

Yesterday, at the Phoenix airport, I noticed that the line behind me to go through security was growing to nearly 800 passengers. TSA had only two people manning the screening podium where passengers show their ID and boarding pass. One of the TSA officers was spending half his time checking airport/airline employees who had a special line. At the same time I noticed half a dozen TSA supervisors standing around. After going through, I unloaded on two of the supervisors for their indifference and mis-application of resources. They were taken aback (I don't think this happened before), but folks, it's your government. Government employees work for you. You pay their salaries. You will get no better government than you insist on and if you remain silent, you will get what you deserve.
Right now, there are precious few elected representatives who understand that you are their employer. The vote themselve pay raises and give themselves 20 minute work days and 2-day work weeks. If you don't speak up, it will only get worse.
Call your Senator and Congressman on a daily or weekly basis. Tell them they need to do a better job of managing the government or your will fire them. Get others to call. You can get results, if you care. If you don't care about such things, then your online rants won't be heard. Anyway, most of the fossil in Washington aren't even internet literate. Call them. Fax them. Fire them next time around and let them know what you intend to do if they don't do their job.

I guess what I was trying to say is that WE the Citizens are solely to blame. The buck stops with us. We need to vote for candidates as if we were hiring them to do a job we need filled, because that's exactly what if is. Do you want to hire someone with no executive experience to be the chief executive? Have they run a business before? If so, was it successful?
Don't return people to a job they are doing poorly. Put their replacement on notice that you won't tolerate laziness, self-dealing dishonesty and mediocrity on the job.

There are a lot of candidates for President in '08. Most of them aren't worth a dime as an executive. We got George Bush 8 years because we failed to put up anybody of quality to run against him. This year we have some good choices but they are not the front runners. It's not a popularity contest folks, it's a job interview. Watch the debates and try to determine who would be the most capable and honest. Who's got the resume? Precious few if any.

While the administration (and others before it) are responsible, we as citizens are equally to blame for allowing it to continue.

I took care of my father for almost 5 years before he passed away last Sept. 2nd. My father was a military vet who had a history of alcohol abuse with the complication of early onset Alzheimer's . He also had emphysema from smoking.

I took him to over a dozen VA hospitals throughout the southeast US and would have taken him to any that could have or would have helped him. It took over two years just to find out what was wrong with him.

There was no facility that could take him because of the substance use issue. He was ineligible for any assistance because they would only take him as a medical patient or a substance treatment patient, but not a combination of the two.

EVEN worse, at the Salisbury NC center I left him for two weeks while they did an assessment for him and conducted some tests. While he was there he called me several times with complaints over conditions and treatment. Not only were the rooms unclean, the staff had NO IDEA what was going on with him, the tests were incomplete and had to be reproduced elsewhere and THEY LOST HIM!!!!

My father who had virtually no short term memory was lost and they did not have the decency to tell me. He wandered around for at least 24 hours until a citizen in Salisbury found him and figured he belonged at the VA. I had already figured something was amiss when I called to speak to him 4 separate times and no one could locate him. I hopped in my car to Salisbury right away.

He had been back about an hour by the time I arrived and I took him home where I had to provide home care until he passed away. I spent years frustrated that he was unable to receive the medical treatment and testing he deserved as a vet in this country.

Sad sad sad

I don't think we should be blaming anyone, until we get all our facts correct. The concept of taking care of all our veterans seems to be a good one. The problem starts when their need is forgotten and no one wants to pay the bill. Politics knows that it is a good idea but with no money, it goes into the must do at least cost file. Least cost anything just does not work. Let's look at a few examples:

A veteran lays in a bed unable to move without help. It takes training to do this correctly, but training takes money. The least cost way is to obtain a body and tell them the man needs to be moved on a schedule. It takes too long to explain how to do the move best for the man, and no one has time to explain the schedule or what happens if it is not kept.

There is no incentive for the untrained person to do the job, knowing that their job is done when the patient is moved and they will be laid off. Best to have a easy time, that person is too heavy anyway, and will problably die soon so a lighter person may be made their duty.

Result: Pertent for the nurses, forget the schedule, enjoy your time with a job, and hope he dies soon before another condition will show he has not been moved. Such is a lowest cost medical care.

By the way, I can remember when I visited the veterans hospital just after the 2nd World War when they employed nurses and aids with training to take care of the patients. Things were real bad, but the trained nurses and aids made the hurting people feel someone cared about them. I better stop now because there is too much wrong with the system to write in a post.

Vote for good medical care and training next time at the poles.

Recoveryman
Lee S

has anyone actually been to Walter Reed? I have and its a big place, the hospital is a complex, not just a single building. The affected areas did have problems and the commander of the hospital when this all broke out had noted it and was working on it...sacking him may have made some people feel good but in this case it was injustice...

as for who's at fault...like anything else in government its seldom possible to point a single finger. Congress (both parties) forgets the VA/Military hospital system until someone goes wrong, they make the budgets which the president either signs or not...the VA has had some poor leaders in recent decades too...Overall its an institutional failure of Congress and additionally the American people who could care less for the most part about Joe or his family unless they personally know someone serving. Less than 1% of Americans serve, why should politicans worry about them?

Anyone who enters a hospital, rest home, convelescent home that is in deplorable or unsanitary conditions has the human responsibility to report the problem. I have sent so many letters to the "government" regarding the disgusting living situations of our elder care facilities and never a response.

Walter Reed is a great example because of its setting. The Commander obviously was not jumping up and down on Congress and the money strings enough to care for our soldiers there. He was guilty of not doing enough.

All of you on this site need to visit only one elder care facility in your home area and you will see it is an ongoing situation and nothing is being done about it. Be assertive, maybe if everyone started complaining loud enough it would get the appropriate attention. I live in California and unless you are very wealthy the care is demoralizing.