2007年VOA标准英语-US Army's Top Hospital Faces Criticism over Mai

By Jim Fry
Washington, DC
22 February 2007
 
watch Walter Reed Conditions

The U.S. Army's second in command says he is disappointed in the living conditions that wounded soldiers endure at the Army's main hospital for the wounded.

A newspaper investigation 1 in Washington, D.C. revealed what it called neglect of the soldiers, and frustration 2 among those soldiers and their families.  The Army is promising 3 action and some in Congress want an investigation. VOA's Jim Fry reports:

Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. prides itself as the Army's premier 4 health care facility for the nation's war wounded.  The Army holds out as an example, the amputee center -- where soldiers receive the latest computerized artificial limbs. But just across Georgia Avenue is a residence for recuperating 5 soldiers known only as Building 18. Here The Washington Post  found soldiers who wait months -- even years -- for follow-up care or discharge from the Army. Some live in substandard conditions, with black mold, damaged walls and holes in ceilings.

Army Veteran Rob Timmins of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America reacts to the treatment.  "This is not the way we should treat our American heroes who have given life, limb over in Iraq and Afghanistan."

 
General Richard Cody
At the Pentagon, the vice 6 chief of staff of the Army, General Richard Cody, said after visiting Building 18 this week he is already taking action to fix what he calls a leadership problem. "And we were absolutely disappointed in the status of the rooms and found the delays and lack of attention to the detail of the repairs inexcusable."

Washington's representative to Congress also visited Building 18, bringing with her TV cameras and reporters. She visited soldiers living in one of the rooms.

In one crowded hallway, she encountered Major General George Weightman, the hospital's commander. He said 26 rooms are getting needed repairs in a 30-year-old building that needs a major overhaul 7: "We have our facilities engineers looking at this building now to determine exactly what the scope of that is.  Not only what systems need to be involved but what the timeline would be as we did that."

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton was not shown mold on walls or holes in ceilings and she told reporters she did not expect to find a dump. "I think that by talking to the two soldiers I was able to get a flavor for what the real problem is. It seems that what was exposed in the Post piece was a completely dilapidated, broken, medical administrative 8 system."

 
Army Specialist Nick Helfferich
Army Specialist Nick Helfferich -- wounded in Iraq -- told reporters that paperwork bounces around the hospital. "Say like from a doctor then to a counselor 9 then it has got to be reviewed by these people. They have got to write a summary on it.  Then someone has got to sign it.  Then I go to sign it.  You know."

Another wounded soldier -- Specialist John Gentry 10 -- said delays are to be expected in the Army.  "And I have seen the rooms they were talking about.  They were not that bad.  I have lived in a lot worse.  I do not know --some people just need to suck it up (be able to handle it)."

 
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton
Walking through Building 18's day room, Norton said she is not worried about the Army fixing the physical deficiencies: "The facility problem?  Knowing the Army -- they will have this place done in a week if they go about it right.  Then what?  Then what happens to a soldier who now at least has a decent place to live but has a bureaucracy that has not been renovated 11?"

She wants Congress to investigate.  And, in fact, one senator has already announced he will convene 12 a hearing next month.