WASHINGTON — A presidential commission recommended major steps Wednesday to overhaul the treatment of military personnel wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that a system criticized for shabby treatment and numbing bureaucracy needed "fundamental change."
The nation must move beyond "merely patching the system" and apply "a sense of urgency and strong leadership" to create a system focused on the needs of individual patients, the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors concluded.
President Bush, who met with the panel leaders Wednesday, created the commission in March. A series of reports in the Washington Post drew attention to poor conditions and neglect of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where approximately 30% of the wounded soldiers are treated.
In its 25-page report, the panel called for a "patient-centered recovery plan" for each seriously injured service member, for which "a corps of well-trained, highly skilled recovery coordinators" would need to be organized. It also proposed what was described as the first major overhaul in the veterans' disability system in 50 years.
Donna Shalala, a former secretary of Health and Human Services and a commission co-chair, said that the Bush administration could implement 29 of the 35 recommendations without legislation.
"The ball's in their court," said former Sen. Bob Dole, the other co-chair, adding that he had told the president: "We're expecting somebody to follow up on it."
Shalala said the recommendations could be implemented for less than $500 million, with an ultimate 10-year cost of $1 billion.
The individualized recovery plans would be intended, the report said, "to ensure an efficient, effective and smooth rehabilitation and transition back to military duty or civilian life," while also creating a single point of contact for patients and families.
One of the chief complaints of those undergoing treatment has been the difficulty they have had in getting information and promptly planning a course of recovery in appropriate facilities -- whether military, veterans or civilian. Often, they say, they must repeat the same information to multiple doctors and others in the healthcare chain.
Seriously wounded troops are regularly assigned multiple caseworkers, each concerned with only one aspect of their treatment.
