When something gets outsourced it becomes Somebody Else’s Problem (See: SEPs). The contracting company has a vested interest in not incurring more costs than would make the contract attractive. They might skimp in gray areas that are not defined in their contract, such as building maintenance, or exaggerate the required doctor:patient ratio to minimize staffing costs. Or keep wages low at the cost of losing the most senior or qualified personnel. All of these seem to be issues in the problems at Walter Reed. If DoD or whomever “negotiated” this wasn’t extremely clear and specific in their service agreement then this is going to get uglier.
Well, that somewhat mitigates DoD’s culpapility. However, it does seem to me that the top commanders should have looked at the outpatient situtation, physical plant and bureacratic jumble. In that way they would have been able to tell the members of Congress about it and make clear the fallout from the situation being made public. That would have gotten the attention of the members even if they weren’t worried about rats in the rooms.
When you go to Congress for money for anything except war or pork you have to go with a strong case.
Jon Steward played several clips last night of Gen. Kiley’s first response when the Post story broke. It showed anything but concern that there might just possibly be problems. “Overblow, not representative, isolated case.” and on and on. It was clear that his first concern was to avoid any responsibility or criticism.
I dunno.
Here in San Diego, we have a big US Navy hospital, the San Diego Naval Medical Center (known as “Balboa Hospital” to the locals).
In todays San Diego Union Tribune, there was a story focused on this hospital, in light of the complaints surfacing about the Walter Reed Center. Complaints about Balboa where few. The paper cited only one person, who stated that the overall service was excellent, except for the patients in “medical hold”.
(In her case, her son was placed in a barracks building on the site so that he could receive out patient care, and had to show up each morning for his care with no assistance from the hospital staff, despite a painful belly wound. I think this case was an isolated one…)
If the cause of the problems at Walter Reed were due to DoD-wide budget contstraints, I would expect to see similar problems (poor building maintenance, understaffing, long wait times) across the country, but I havent heard of any but a few cases here and there.
What I am going to guess was the main contributor of the problem at Walter Reed was that the facility was on a closure list, leading to the policies that resulted in no additional funding should be spent on the place, and the staff being contracted out during the interim.
It’s difficult to square claims that DoD did its best to get adequate funding in light of this interview on Hardball with Rep.John Tierney (D-MA).(video - there is an ad ahead of the interview) According to Tierney hearings were held last year and the Army assured Congress that everything was being taken care of. That doesn’t sound like an organization that was beating down the doors of Congress for money to provide good outpatient care and sanitary facilities.
As to the BRAC closure of Walter Reed. This war has been going on for 4 years and casualties have been coming in the that hospital during that time. I find it difficult to believe the idea that it should take that long to shift gears in view of changed circumstances if those in charge really want to.
Our local military hospital here in the PNW — Madigan at Fort Lewis — is a notorious hellhole and has been that way for years. A good friend of mine lost her father a while back due to the facility’s wholly inadequate standard of care.
(Note: The linked article is fairly even-handed, representing both the claims of complainants and the military’s defense. Nevertheless the hospital’s reputation in the area is well-known.)
David, I understand your point, and it is hard to rectify some of these comments sometimes. But in the Pentagon, as I’m sure is the case with IBM, AOL, Ford, etc., hard decisions are made leadership, that those at a lower level are left to support it. Within DoD, the services and Flags argue for thousands of programs, and try to sway leadership what the pitfalls are if items are not funded. There are winners and losers, but one thing is certain. There is never enough funding to go around. And when the President’s budget is submitted, it is DoD’s job to support that budget to Congress. Certainly there are some minor conplaints, and there are areas targeted by DoD to take issue with. But by and large, it’s our job to support the Boss’s budget. This was this way with Clinton before Bush, so this is not a change. I can tell you that I’ve seen three stars banging on tables, saying that their program will be broken, and then write statements, saying that they can manage with what they have.
yes, I know this. What this indicates is that within the DoD outpatient care of the wounded was of relatively low priority.
The claim of the administration is that this is a struggle for our actual survival and it seems to me that doing the budget in a “business as usual” manner doesn’t square with that characterization.
One of the most serious problems facing the Army is getting and retaining personnel enough to carry on this “war for the world.” When shabby treatment of wounded is exposed, and it will be sooner or later, it exacerbates that problem.
When asked a question in a Congressional hearing you are required to tell the truth. When asked in the hearings that were held last year the Army representatives seem to have relied, at best, on half-truth and evasion. In my opinion this is a serious deficiency in the very highest levels of command in the :Army and in DoD.
Yeah. After I opened my big yapper yesterday with post #23, more stories started filtering in to the talk radio stations I listen to. grump I hate feeling stupid.