Injured veterans still wait for help

Injured veterans still wait for help

They were conceived as bureaucracy busters, advocates to help severely injured troops navigate the multi-agency maze of getting health care and benefits.



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Kendrick Brinson/Staff
Physical therapist Barry Dye (left) watches Staff Sgt. Axel Perez work on balance and endurance at the active-duty rehabilitation unit at Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Click photo for optionsBut hiring federal recovery coordinators and assigning them to service members is being held up -- by bureaucracy.

In written answers to questions asked by The Augusta Chronicle, the program's U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs administrators said they have no immediate plans to put a recovery coordinator in Augusta, where Eisenhower Army Medical Center has been taking in the second- or third-most number of war-wounded troops of all military hospitals in the country.

"However, VA and (the Department of Defense) are carefully tracking workload, geographic distribution and complexity of severely injured service members and using this data to determine the number and location of additional FRCs," the VA statement said.

"Should the analysis indicate a high concentration of catastrophically injured service members in the Eisenhower area, VA will consider locating an FRC there in the future."

The active-duty rehabilitation unit at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center is currently treating 15 hospitalized patients and seven outpatients who fit the seriously wounded description, spokesman Michael Shaffer said.

The spinal cord injury unit has another three inpatients and two outpatients, he said.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Chipman said she couldn't obtain those figures for Eisenhower because of an ongoing office move, but at least two amputees are being treated there.

The creation of an Interagency Recovery Coordinator corps was one of the main recommendations of a nine-member presidential panel formed in 2007 to find ways of improving services for injured troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the time, The Washington Post had just exposed neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The so-called Dole/Shalala report was given to President Bush a year ago this week.

Laurie Ott, the executive director of the CSRA Wounded Warrior Care Project, says the coordinators program is moving along too sluggishly.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun is trying to meet with VA officials at his Washington office before next month's recess to try to convince them to put a patient advocate in Augusta, according to his press secretary.

In response to other questions from the newspaper, the VA said it has spent $2.5 million on the program in fiscal year 2008, with nine recovery coordinators currently assigned to 88 patients -- 34 at Walter Reed; 22 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio; 20 at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.; seven at the VA in Providence, R.I.; and five at the Houston VA.

"I can tell you seven people by name who need an FRC in Augusta," Ms. Ott said.

Asked by The Chronicle whether he's satisfied with the program's progress, retired Sen. Bob Dole, who co-chaired the presidential panel with former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, hinted that improvements are on the way.

"I know there are some kinks in the program which are now being addressed at the White House and by VA Deputy Secretary Gordon Mansfield," Mr. Dole wrote in an e-mail. "I have other information that gives me confidence the program will be a great asset to seriously wounded in 90 days."

Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.

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