Hagel Sends Letter to Defense Secretary Gates About the Conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Hagel Sends Letter to Defense Secretary Gates About the Conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

February 21st, 2007 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) sent a letter today to United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates regarding reports of dismal living conditions and Army bureaucratic entanglement for service members recovering from war injuries at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. In the letter, Hagel urged Gates to immediately begin a review of the living conditions and health services provided at all military medical facilities.

“We are asking our young men and women to fight and die with the promise that, if necessary, we will provide them the best medical care available. Unfortunately - as illustrated by the piles of paperwork we require service members to complete only to be lost by the Army bureaucracy, the condition of facilities like building 18 at Walter Reed, the poor training of civilian care coordinators and case managers, and the sheer lack of respect for the basic human dignity of these men and women - we are not meeting our promises to those who serve our country. The medical care system is broken and the problem must be fixed now. The Department of Defense needs to immediately begin a review of all military medical facilities and fix these problems,” Hagel said.

This weekend, The Washington Post had a series of stories about the current condition of facilities at Walter Reed Medical Center. To view these stories online please go to, http://www.washingtonpost.com.

Attached is the letter Hagel sent to Defense Secretary Gates.

February 20, 2007


Dear Secretary Gates:


Since we first entered Afghanistan and then Iraq, I have visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda National Naval Medical Center many times, spending time with our war wounded and their families and listening to their stories. I was appalled to read the Washington Post series this weekend about the condition of facilities at Walter Reed.

This is a disgraceful reflection of our government’s lack of attention to those wounded in battle and their convalescence and rehabilitation. I’m sure those who read these stories were shocked by them.

We are asking our young men and women to fight and die with the promise that, if necessary, we will provide them the best medical care available. Unfortunately – as illustrated by the piles of paperwork we require service members to complete only to be lost later by the Army bureaucracy, the condition of facilities like building 18 at Walter Reed, the poor training of civilian care coordinators and case managers, and the sheer lack of respect for the basic human dignity of these men and women – we are not meeting our promises to those who serve our country. The medical care system is broken and the problem must be fixed now. The Department of Defense needs to immediately begin a review of all military medical facilities and fix these problems.

Our men and women in uniform and their families deserve the very best that we can give them – be it medical care, housing facilities, or job training. I understand that you are developing a strategy to address facility repairs at military medical facilities.

I would appreciate your answer to these stories and what plans are underway to immediately deal with them.

Thank you.


Sincerely,

[Chuck Hagel]