Care for Injured British Troops Is Faulted (Sound familiar?)

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031100610.html

Care for Injured British Troops Is Faulted
Allegations of Poor Medical Treatment Detailed in Relatives' Letters to Defense Ministry

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 12, 2007; Page A09

LONDON, March 11 -- British troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are receiving appalling care in British hospitals, according to families who have made complaints similar to those leveled against Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"We gloriously see them off to war and then neglect them when they come back," said Phillip Cooper, whose son, Jamie, 18, is a soldier who was severely injured in a mortar attack in Iraq in November. "They lay down their lives for their country, then they get treated appallingly."

Detailing a long list of problems in a telephone interview, Cooper said his son's colostomy bag has twice been allowed to overflow, forcing him to lie in his own feces. On one occasion, Cooper said, he and his wife changed the bag themselves after nurses on duty at the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, Britain's principal medical center tending to wounded soldiers, said they did not know how.

"We didn't mind doing it -- he's our son -- but we shouldn't have had to," Cooper said.

Allegations of poor care for British service members were first reported Sunday in the Observer newspaper, which quoted from several letters of complaint sent to the Defense Ministry by families of the wounded. The letters alleged that troops had suffered from a lack of basic medical care, including some who had been deprived of adequate pain medication after wards ran out of supplies.

"They are not getting what they expect, nor are their family members getting what they expect," said Sue Freeth, welfare director for the Royal British Legion, which represents 450,000 service members and veterans. Freeth said many soldiers are waiting 18 months or longer for critical mental health care services, which she called "a national disgrace."

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[Cassandra]

1. More than oil...

this war is about profiteering. There just isn't much profit in soldiers when there are bloated weapons contracts to fill for useless weapons that even the Pentagon doesn't want. The top brass of the Pentagon has become a bunch of spineless careerists who are looking to strike it big by working for a weapons manufacturer. If Clark doesn't run for President, he would be a good Sec. of Defense, because he would know which generals are bullshit artists and which are not.