Topic: Opinions & Commentaries
I find the following story is very interesting and yet I’m not surprised. Hearings, commissions, reports, and personal testimonies, have been an ongoing thing for years, yet I think we all need to ask; what is REALLY being done? Yesterday’s testimonies provided by; Peter J. Bunce, Colonel USAF (Retired), Robert Verbeke, and Jackie McMichael, could be a carbon copy of hundreds of stories told before and probably the same stories we’ll hear in the future. Specific details may be different, but over all the stories are the same; Families doing the job that the DoD and VA should be doing.
Tuesday’s Hearing Testimonies can be found here: http://senate.gov/~veterans/public/index.cfm?pageid=16&release_id=11536&view=all
Defense, VA lay out plans to improve health care for wounded soldiers
Full Article can be found here: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39502&dcn=todaysnews
Top officials from the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense said on Tuesday that they plan to improve the health care for troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan by providing them with "a life map for recovery" that integrates all their heath records into one package and lays out a listing of follow-up services. (Clipped)
BUT... Here is the key factor of the whole article; “VA did not return calls or e-mails asking when it planned to have the eBenefits portal in operation.” Another words, we (The VA and DoD) all know how screwed up the system is, and we’ve provided the “plans” for what we “plan” to do, but we have no idea how or when we’ll be able to do it!
The VA and DoD have been “in the process” of merging health care records/systems for years now, but control issues, software incompatibilities and arrogance (about which system is better) have lead to nothing being done.
Personally, I doubt they are capable of mapping anyone’s life for recovery, for now (and for years to come) the care and support for our wounded will continue to be handled by the families.
