According to Gregg Zoroya of USA Today, our nation’s military hospitals, that are commissioned to care for our nation’s fighting forces, are drastically understaffed causing long waits and almost impossible-to-get appointments. For example, Fort Stewart, Georgia’s Winn Army Community Hospital has a baby boom that has overwhelmed its gynecological and pediatric services.

Again this comes back to the American government expending as little as possible to care for the needs of American citizens even though they appear to have no difficulty with the massive expenditures being shelled out to pay for Bush’s vindictive War in Iraq and now the deployment of our troops into Lebanon to assist its government in the fight against the radical Palestinian splinter group Fatah al-Islam in northern Lebanon. So while military families agonize over the absence of basic care and military caregivers agonize over whether the problem can be fixed anytime soon the Army’s acting surgeon general, Major General Gale Pollock, admits that the situation illustrates the challenge faced nationwide of how to keep health care promises that were made to soldiers when they enlisted. My question then is wouldn’t it make sense to care for our own people, tend to our war wounded with the best care available anywhere, and allow other countries to fight their own battles. I am not suggesting that we should not protect our own interests’ world wide just that we should care for our own people first, make provisions so that our children will not be saddled with a debt that they can never hope to repay, and then worry about solving those problems that exist elsewhere.

Sadly, it wasn’t until the nightmare discoveries at Walter Reed Hospital that anyone bothered to look at the care being received by our military families. This should have been given top priority by the Administration since they are the one’s responsible for sending our soldiers into harm’s way in the first place. Even Colonel Scott Goodrich, Winn’s commander agrees that if these brave young men and women are sent to take care of the nation’s business they should not have to worry about medical care should they be injured or their families need medical care. In fact, however, of the 36 medical facilities operated by the military worldwide more than half cannot meet the Pentagon’s standards of providing a doctor within seven days for routine medical care.

However, while the cry is that more money is needed those funds could potentially be found by reducing the number of referrals to doctors outside the system which jumped from $200 million in 2000 to nearly $1 billion last year with 70 percent of these costs being directly related to outpatient care which could have been handled in anyone of the military facilities if the funds for these facilities were made available.

Additionally, both Pollock and Goodrich agree that the army’s entire health system has trouble providing care quickly enough due to the demand for doctors in Iraq, a shortage of Reserve caregivers, and a cumbersome government process for hiring civilian replacements. Currently Pollock admits that they are approximately 180 doctors shy of those needed to meet demand but she hopes that as the army is expanded with the addition of another 65,000 troops that the number of doctors will also be increased. Again my question is where will the funds come from to expand the nation’s armed services; why do they need to be expanded; what are the long-term goals of this administration; and unless more funds are contributed into the care of our soldiers how will increasing the number of active troops who need care solve the current crisis?

My answer: provide the necessary and best care for our existing troops and their families; bring home our troops from those countries that do not want our assistance or no longer need it; and replace the current administration with someone who has the welfare of American citizens at the forefront of their agenda.

Tags: military hospitals, medical care, soldiers, troops, gale pollock, winn army community hospital, walter reed hospital, scott goodrich, military families