VA facilities mirror crisis at Walter Reed

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http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/stories/MYSA030907.01O.veterans1ed.297e5ef.html

VA facilities mirror crisis at Walter Reed

Web Posted: 03/08/2007 07:11 PM CST


San Antonio Express-News

Reports of the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center shocked the nation, but it was only the beginning.

The staggering revelations are spreading.

The Washington Post, which uncovered the crisis at the facility in Washington, reported the same kind of conditions — neglect, substandard care, callous counselors, mountains of paperwork — at Veterans Administration hospitals throughout the nation.

"The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," Capt. Leslie Haines, who was treated at the hospital in Fort Knox, Ky., after being flown out of Iraq in 2004, told the Post. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."

The veterans told their stories to the Post, and while each tale is depressing and disturbing, the overall impact is worse still, pointing to a system ill-equipped to handle the needs of physically and psychologically scarred veterans.

"It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point," Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded in the military, said.

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