Thursday, March 22, 2007
WASHINGTON - Sen. Olympia Snowe said Wednesday she hopes to propose legislation to remedy bureaucratic problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Snowe, who commented after visiting a Maine soldier at the hospital, also wrote to the Army secretary asking how contracts are awarded because of complaints about the quality of private contractors at the site.
"I don't blame these soldiers for being so frustrated and I will be looking specifically at ways to enhance patient advocacy," Snowe, R-Maine, said in a statement after she met with Sgt. 1st Class Brian Levensailor of Guilford in what was also her first visit to the hospital since the start of the Iraq war.
Three Army leaders -- Secretary Francis Harvey, Surgeon General Kevin Kiley and the hospital's commander, Maj. Gen. George Weightman -- were ousted after revelations about conditions were published in The Washington Post a month ago. In particular, Building 18 was described as having vermin infestation and moldy walls.
Levensailor, who has spent 26 years in the military, injured his back in Afghanistan and later served in Iraq. He is being treated as an outpatient at Walter Reed, where he spent about three months in Building 18 before moving to Abrams Hall.
His primary complaint, expressed in a meeting March 9 with Gov. John Baldacci and again with Snowe on Wednesday, was that patients need better advocates to get treatment in a system he described as adversarial.
Besides the treatment hurdles, congressional complaints have addressed the Army's hiring private contractors at the hospital. IAP Worldwide Services Inc. was the only bidder for a five-year, $120 million contract to handle maintenance, security and management of military personnel at the hospital.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., proposed prohibiting the privatization of 350 jobs at the facility as part of last year's defense-spending bill, but she lost on a 50-48 vote. Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine were two of only five Republicans to support Mikulski.
As the top Republican on the Small Business Committee, Snowe wrote to acting Army Secretary Peter Geren to ask for all documents for all small-business contracts during the last three years.
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many cases foreign aliens who lack even the least basic medical credentials
and many medical staff some of whom fail to meet Maine's minimum
medical/physicians
standards of education and experience or some who practice outside their
specialties and level of expertise. The services provided could easily be
handled by the vet's own medical providers and hospitals and would be
extremely more convenient to vets through out the state. The reason this is
not being pushed by
anyone, is that the gov't really doesn't give a damn about its vets. The
service organizations leadership know what the problems are but they don't
push this issue as they care more about their personal needs than that of
their membership. Moreover, the compensation program is criminal. It is a
blatant fraud. A vet at 90% disability gets less than half a vet at 100%.
For example, if you have an orthopedic claim and even with irrefutable
military and civilian medical evidence, the va will then schedule you with an
appointment with a doctor who does a crude orthopedic exam denies the claim
and turns out to be unlicensed and turns his exam findings to a non medical
va employee who then makes a MEDICAL DECISION and invariably denies the claims
summarily. This is intended to last several years as if the vet dies in the
process, as he often does, then the claim dies and there is no payment, in
spite of the meris of his claim. This is well known by all the service groups,
eg, dav, american legion, vfw, etc., but they do nada to looking out for their
membership, except to say well, we pay for a service rep to handle the claim;
that is equivalent to handling the problems of its members, at best, as
passive, instead of dealing with the systemic issues proactivelyreport abuse
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