http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07067/767822-84.stmPennsylvania's U.S. Rep. John Murtha and other lawmakers yesterday expressed bewilderment that officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center never sought their help in confronting poor treatment and bureaucratic entanglements for scores of wounded soldiers at the nation's premier military hospital.
"We have to know the problems," Mr. Murtha, a Johnstown Democrat and chairman of the House's committee on defense spending, told generals during a hearing on abysmal conditions at the hospital, unveiled by recent articles in The Washington Post. "If it's money, we can help. But we can't help if nobody tells us what the problem is."
Yesterday's congressional hearing was the third this week spotlighting Walter Reed's outpatient medical care, and top commanders again promised to undertake an overhaul of how health care is provided throughout the military at a time when thousands of injured veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are entering the system.
Both Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam War veteran, and the committee's ranking Republican, Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, have long been frequent visitors to Walter Reed and dozens of other military medical facilities. Mr. Young acknowledged yesterday that he had seen many worrisome problems during those visits, but had been reluctant to discuss them publicly because of a fear of violating troops' privacy.
The families of those soldiers have since given him permission to talk, he said.
Mr. Young told the story of a soldier who was lying in a pool of urine in a bed because the hospital didn't have enough clean sheets. When Mr. Young's wife, a regular volunteer at Walter Reed, complained, an employee snapped at her.
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