E&P: 'Washington Post' Gets Results from Walter Reed Hospital Probe

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: 'Post' Gets Results from Walter Reed Hospital Probe
By E&P Staff
February 20, 2007

NEW YORK -- In a front page story in The Washington Post on Sunday, reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull exposed dreadful conditions at the supposed "crown jewel of military medicine"-- Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

On Monday, the paper carried Part II by the same reporters, titled: "Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons."

Now, in another front-pager on Tuesday, the two report: "Walter Reed Army Medical Center began repairs yesterday on Building 18, a former hotel that is used to house outpatients recuperating from injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan and that has been plagued with mold, leaky plumbing and a broken elevator.

"The facility's commander, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, said Army staff members inspected each of the 54 rooms at the building and discovered that outstanding repair orders for half the rooms had not been completed. He said that mold removal had begun on several rooms and that holes in ceilings, stained carpets and leaking faucets were being fixed....

"Walter Reed and Army officials have been 'meeting continuously for three days' since the articles began appearing, Weightman said. A large roundtable meeting with Army and Defense Department officials will take place at the Pentagon early this morning to continue talks about improvements in the outpatient system, he added.

"Weightman said the medical center has received an outpouring of concern about conditions and procedures since the articles appeared and has taken steps to improve what soldiers and their families describe as a messy battlefield of bureaucratic problems and mistreatment. 'We're starting to attack how we'll fix and mitigate' some of the problems, he said....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003547281

[Kagemusha]

1. Don't count your building repairs before they hatch

By next week they may evaporate.

They did in Iraq.

[Monkeyman]

2. Did you hear CNN While the Army Sec was there

A car drove by with a soldier in he yelled out check building 11 too. This is not over

[Kagemusha]

4. That'd have broken my CNN boycott but...

Point taken, and I would've been shocked to discover that this was a problem in one building only.

[TexasLawyer]

3. Power of the press

I'm glad it's exercised occasionally. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, as they say.