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April 2, 2007

Bond Continues Inspection of Missouri Veterans' Facilities

Senator Meets with Veterans and VA Staff

U.S. Senator Kit Bond today continued his tour of Missouri veterans' facilities with a visit to the St. Louis VA Medical Center-John Cochran Division, John Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff and the Gene Taylor VA Clinic in Mt. Vernon. Bond inspected the facilities and met with VA staff, veterans and veterans' service organizations.

"If one of our wounded warriors falls through the cracks of the military or veterans' health system, that is one too many," said Bond. "I look forward to working with all of you to improve patient care at Missouri facilities and throughout the military and veterans' system."

Following news reports about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital, Bond began a tour of Missouri veterans' facilities. Bond will use these tours to identify the areas where active-duty and veteran-health care is strong, and areas that need improvement. In March, Bond visited veterans' hospitals in Kansas City and Columbia. Later today, Bond will visit veterans' facilities in Poplar Bluff and Mt. Vernon.

The conditions at Walter Reed - substandard living conditions, insufficient medical personnel, excessive delays in the delivery of care and in the medical and physical disability evaluation process - were nearly identical to conditions Senator Bond and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) found when they investigated military health care problems at Ft. Stewart, Ft. Knox, and Ft. Carson beginning in 2003.

The conditions at our medical facilities must, and will, improve, stressed Bond. It is critical to determine the extent of the problem throughout the system, and what issues specifically need to be addressed. He pointed out that, anecdotally, soldiers are very pleased with the quality of medical care they receive in the military hospitals and in Missouri's veterans' facilities. Patient care, however, is often another story. On the military hospital side, problems seem to occur when they are sent to military facilities or barracks to recover from their injuries or surgeries, when they are in what is called "medical hold" status.

It takes more than 200 days - nearly 7 months - to assess the fitness for duty for injured forces. Clearly, the red tape at the Pentagon needs to be cut and the process for evaluating disabilities needs to be expedited, said Bond. Also, personnel shortages such as case workers and health care workers, negatively impacts the quality of care and lengthens the time necessary for injured forces to recuperate.

Bond stressed that when soldiers are processed out of the military health care system to the VA system, like John Cochran, the transition should be a seamless one. He expressed concern that VA and Department of Defense hospitals are not prepared to deal with the growing number of service personnel with loss of limb or those afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. The Army did not anticipate being in a war for so long and did not hire enough nurses and mental health specialists to treat troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In order to address these immediate needs, Bond supported Appropriations Committee Chairman Senator Robert Byrd's amendment to add $1.7 billion for veterans' medical care and prosthetics research to the supplemental appropriations bill. In addition to the emergency funds in the supplemental, Bond said Congress will follow-up and make the necessary policy changes to ensure that troops and veterans are properly cared for, from their stay in a military hospital, to initial contact with the VA, to a diagnosis, to the health care, through the follow-up and processing of their claims.