Walter Reed Story AWOL - So Is American Nursing - TPMCafe

gr8rnpjt, RN · Mar 21, 2007

What a dark day for nursing. Where was the discharge planning? How can we think about letting the government run our healthcare system, when our own veterans are treated like this?

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Mar 21, 2007

I forwarded this editorial to Sandy Summers @ Center for Nursing Advocacy as feel greater impact can be made over this issue compared to tirade over Kelly Rippa.....

Simplepleasures · Mar 21, 2007

There was outrage expressed on this BB, one the Walter Reed thread, maybe we can forward our postings to this person you mentioned. Also it was the privatization of services at Walter Reed that was its downfall. This contactracting practice began in 2000 and was stepped up in 2004, I will get the link up about this occurance from the "ArmyTimes" article". The generals in charge were ultimatly responsible for the caliber of whom they gave these contracts to, lowest bidder usually wins, but do they provide shoddy workmanship? The military in all areas is being stretched critically thin because of this war in Iraq, more and more privatizing of services is happening in all areas , housing, base upkeep, food sevice, healthcare, IF this practice continues, shouldnt there be stricter standards for delivery of services, especially when it comes to the health and well being of our injured service members and veterans?

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/tnsWeightmansubpoena070302/

Simplepleasures · Mar 21, 2007

The Kelly Ripa thread is getting twice as many posts and three times as many views as this one, just proves the premise of this AWOL story to be right on target, where is our collective outrage as nurses? Kelly Ripa more interesting I guess.Sad.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Mar 24, 2007

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Sad but true :

RN4MERCY · Mar 25, 2007

The one outstanding exception, to your assertion regarding the shameful AWOL voice among the ANA and other so-called "nurse leaders", is the statement by The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee President, Deborah Burger. We represent 75,000 nurses in 50 states, and we are a union "with a pulse" according to Ralph Nader. We are fighting for a Single Payer, Single Standard of high quality, (safe, therapeutic, effective and competent) healthcare for all. Our veterans have done their part and served with distinction. We must resist the privatization and corporatization of health care that wastes 30% of precious health care dollars, which has caused a shameful erosion of our public health and veteran's health infrastructure. Her commentary is posted here:

"With President Bush now proposing to push the price tag for the war on Iraq up to nearly $600 billion - more than was spent on the Vietnam War - while seeking new cuts in our health-care safety net, it would appear the debate over guns and butter is over. The guns have won.

Polls before the last election found that the two issues foremost on voters' minds were the war in Iraq and our ever worsening health-care crisis. More than ever, the two issues seem linked. With record budget deficits, substantially inflated by spending on the war, resources for health care and other critical domestic needs are increasingly starved.

On the same day the president was proposing another $245 billion to prosecute the war this year and next, which would bring the five-year total since the war began to a staggering sum of $589 billion, he also called for slashing $78.6 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years.

In addition, the president wants Medicare recipients to pay higher premiums for prescription drugs and doctors' services, and to eliminate annual indexing of income thresholds, effectively another $10 billion in cuts.

Expanding children's health, preventive health programs and addressing "personal responsibility" by tackling childhood and adult obesity are supposedly atop everyone's short list of health-care priorities. But those now appear to be collateral damage.

Bush is seeking a $223 million reduction in spending for the Children's Health Insurance program, and elimination of a preventive health services block grant program, $99 million a year to the states, used for obesity prevention and programs for chronic health conditions.

He's also seeking millions in reductions for the National Cancer Institute, at the very moment some progress has been made in fighting cancer, and for the Centers for Disease Control for disease surveillance monitoring of bird flu and other approaching epidemics.

That's just the cuts. There's no mention of additional funding to address the national plight of 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 17 million underinsured; the increased closure of public hospitals and clinics, including half of the nation's poor counties that no longer have a health center, and all of the other dismal statistics that have dropped our country to 37th in the world in health-care indicators.

Imagine for a moment how else we could have spent $589 billion, the amount already devoured by the war in Iraq, plus the administration's funding request for the next two years.

With those same dollars, you could buy health insurance for 139 million people, all of the nation's uninsured for the next three years. Or you could fund the current federal program of spending on HIV/AIDS anti-retroviral drugs for the next 60 years. Or you could cover the cost of educating an additional 39.2 million registered nurses.

To make matters worse, there's the recent disclosures about the horrifying, long-term costs of caring for our nation's war wounded.

Harvard University last week released research findings predicting the United States will need to spend as much as $662 billion over the next 40 years on medical costs for the tens of thousands of injured veterans.

Sadly, the real social and health consequences could be far greater. In a July 2005 article in Harper's Magazine, Ronald Glasser, MD, wrote that a very large number of the war wounded are amputees and soldiers blinded and brain damaged, who will require extensive social support in a society that increasingly devalues our social safety net.

Army neurologists, wrote Glasser, fear that the severe brain injuries are being underdiagnosed and will leave many veterans with lasting cognitive and emotional damage that don't fit neatly into budgetary forecasts, but will be devastating to the veterans and their families.

But the veterans are already feeling the pain of cuts in our nation's health spending. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 263,257 veterans were denied enrollment for Veterans Administration health coverage in 2005. To cut costs, enrollment has been suspended for those deemed not having service-related injuries or illnesses.

The VA also is falling short on mental-health care for veterans, despite the fact that the VA itself counts post-traumatic stress disorder as one of the top illnesses to emerge from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom," said Dr. Martin Luther King, and, he might well have added, endangering the health security of its citizens at home."

Deborah Burger, RN, is president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

RN4MERCY · Mar 26, 2007

walter reed story awol - so is american nursing
[color=#6f6f6f]tpmcafe, ny - 7 hours ago
where is nursing's voice? where is the interest of nurses in explaining the issue to the public? where is the ethical obligation nurses have in caring for ...
more... walter reed story awol - so is american nursing - tpmcafe

we're all at walter reed

by deborah burger, rn

huffington post

march 6, 2007

there's another side to the unfolding scandal at walter reed army medical center and other veterans administration facilities. the bush administration's attitude toward our wounded veterans parallels its behavior toward the rest of our healthcare system - neglect, inadequate funding, and privatization.

it also illustrates a disturbing pattern of misplaced priorities, record spending on a disastrous war while our healthcare security for veterans and millions of other americans is left behind.

for those who have missed the headlines, or are just too horrified to read the details, here's a snapshot of the administration's greatest domestic disaster since katrina.

it starts with brutally substandard care and abandonment of tens of thousands of veterans, not just at walter reed, but at va hospitals and clinics around the country, as the washington post has revealed in ghastly detail.

second, starving the va. since 2001, as paul krugman reported in the new york times, federal allocations for veterans medical care lag behind overall healthcare spending, rather stunning when you consider we have sent 1.5 million of our young men and women to iraq and afghanistan and over 184,000 have sought va care after serving.

there's more. due to funding cuts, some 263,257 veterans were denied enrollment for veterans administration health coverage in 2005. to cut costs, enrollment has been suspended for those deemed not having service-related injuries or illnesses. so much for the guarantee of lifetime healthcare. and, if all the other indignities were not enough, some walter reed patients had to buy their own meals.

the final piece of this unholy troika is privatization. as the army times notes, walter reed handed a five-year $120 million contract to a private company run by an ex-halliburton executive. the contracting out of support services was followed by a mass exodus of support personnel.

now if you think this is an aberration, look at other ways our healthcare safety net is being dismantled.

since president bush arrived in washington, the number of uninsured has ballooned by 11%. it's not much better for the insured. nearly half say their insurer has refused to pay a medical bill they received, about a third say they have hesitated seeking needed care due to cost. today half of all bankruptcies, and a third of credit card debt, is directly linked to medical bills.

concurrently, the number of public hospitals in america has fallen by 30% the past 30 years, a period in which the combined debt of state and local governments has grown by 852% to nearly $200 billion.

it's affecting huge proportions of our population. new york is preparing to close or merge dozens of hospitals, and chicago officials just signed off on plans to shut or downsize 19 community and school based clinics.

the u.s. spends more, far more, on health care than any other nation, but much of it is diverted into the pockets of corporate ceos, gobbled up in record profits for the healthcare industry, and consumed by administrative waste. just last week the commission that advises congress on medicare reported that medicare has to spend 12% more for care that is administered through private insurers than through traditional medicare.

meanwhile the healthcare lobby cheerleads for more privatization, and the bush administration, joined by a number of politicians and even some advocacy groups, argue that the solution to our healthcare nightmare is more private insurance, not more healthcare.

then there's the war. while the walter reed disgrace was heating up, the administration was back on capitol hill, hat in hand, not for our veterans or the families who have to hold garage sales for their children's health. it was seeking another $142 billion in additional war funding.

the same $142 billion would pay for 8.7 million hospital stays for heart attack victims. it's also nearly four times what the administration has proposed this year for the department of veterans affairs.

overall, the president's request for funding this year and next would bring the total consumed by the war since 2003 to $589 billion, an amount that would buy health insurance for 139 million people, all of the nation's uninsured for the next three years.

these funding strains also add to the disparity in healthcare indicators between the u.s. and other industrialized nations.

our nation trails 36 other countries in the mortality rate for adults ages 15 to 60, 31 countries in infant mortality, and ranks just 26th in the mortality rate for cardio vascular disease. yet we spend far more in defense, nearly four times as much of our gross domestic product as japan, canada and spain, three of the countries ahead of us in most health barometers.

all those nations, of course, also have some form of guaranteed universal healthcare system, sort of an expanded medicare as has been proposed for the u.s. in hr 676. the public is ready for it. the latest new york times/cbs poll found that 64% said the government should guarantee health insurance for all, 55% identified it as the top domestic priority for congress and the president.

the bush administration can fire a general or two, but until it shows the same commitment to caring for the war wounded and the rest of our nation's health that it does in waging war, walter reed will just be another name on a growing list of shame.

deborah burger, rn

president california nurses association/national nurses organizing committee

representing 75,000 direct care rns in 50 states

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Mar 26, 2007

I agree with Deborah Burger and the blogger. The ANA needs to step up and speak out. People cut on the CNA for being a "rogue organization," but they always speak out on issues such as this. The ANA could take some pointers from them.

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 26, 2007

YOu all are so right-on. WHERE IS OUR OUTRAGE in this situation? Kelly Ripa and Regis,be danged. I am ashamed, sad and shocked.

SharonH, RN · Mar 28, 2007

I like what this blogger has to say and how he or she says it! Having said that, I agree that it is too bad that nursing has been quite silent about this issue. Perhaps the major organizations view this as a strictly military/political issue? I was pleased but not surprised to read that the CNA spoke out. There's just one little problem: if they has spoken out, would anyone have listened? I can't remember the last time that a news organization covered a press release or a statement by a major nursing organization on any issue. That makes me sad and angry but it's true.

sunnyjohn · Mar 28, 2007

The Kelly Ripa thread is getting twice as many posts and three times as many views as this one, just proves the premise of this AWOL story to be right on target, where is our collective outrage as nurses? Kelly Ripa more interesting I guess.Sad.

Yep........ We are too busy fighting with shadows.