Military Doing All It Can For Wounded by Jayme Evans

by Jayme Evans

Military Doing All It Can For Wounded

May 14, 2008 10:00 AM EST

Ever since the Iraq war began, politicians and media elites have been using the health care of returning veterans as a campaign issue; a political football to bekicked aroundand fought over. And ever since those first Iraq veterans began returning from battle, those same politicians and media elites have been sounding the alarm about the horrendous care our veterans have received at the hands of the military health care system and V.A.

I, for one, am sick of the lies. I know they're lies. I am as familiar with navigating the military's medical review process as any. I spent 6 months and endured 4 major surgeriesat military facilities on the west coast. I was treated by some of the most compassionate, dedicated and experienced doctors, surgeons, nurses that this country has to offer. I also witnessed this superior level of care extended to all military personnel on a daily basis. I saw sight restored tobadly lacerated, blind eyes. I saw lumps of flesh that passed for burned off ears that were completely reconstructed from the patient's own body parts. I saw the crushed, the impaledand the burned pieced back together and healed.

But if you believethe candidates,the Congressor media such as the New York Times,themilitary health caresystem is dysfunctional, incompetent and in complete need of overhaul.

Military medicine serves as the basis for many innovations in trauma care. The experience gained while treating horrendous battlefield injuries by military medics and surgeons who may have to improvise in the combat zoneoffers civilian trauma centers a valuable knowledge base to draw from. During the 1st Gulf War, a double amputee was unquestionably found unfit for duty and retired. But recent advances in prosthetics mean thatdouble amputees can not only return to active duty, they can run marathons and leadnormal lives.

There are unquestionably problems in military medicine and care, just as there are with civilian care. No veteran should have to live in substandard conditions or squalor. The problems with living conditions at Walter Reedare unacceptable, but they are also an aberration.The vast majority of those in military medicine are consummate professionals whose devotion to and treatment of their patients is unquestionably their top priority. In fact, acording to recent studies conducted by the military, the level of satisfaction among wounded military members concerning the care they're receiving isextremely high.

Among the military's recent findings,77%of themilitary wounded returning from Iraq and Afghanistan that were part of the study said the military was doing all it can and should to provide their care. But while satisfaction was high, there were some revealing differences of opinion. The levels of satisfaction were higher among older veterans and those who had been home longer from their deployments, suggesting that patient satisfaction was highly subjective. Perhaps in this age of instant gratification, we are looking for immediate results and expect that the care of our son or daughter is somehow more important than that of another. Another possibility is that the older and more mature the soldier, the more realistic his expectations about what can and can't be done.

Over and over again, politicians, parents and even some veterans voice their belief thatthe system has failed when veterans are waiting 6 months or more for prostheses. What they don't understand, neglect to tell you, or don't want you to know is that veterans have alwayswaited that long to be fit for their artificial limbs and other medical devices. There are a variety of reasons, not the least of which relate to the actual medical conditions. The injuries need time to heal andswelling needs to subside.

There have been mistakes. No system is perfect. There have been individual caseswhere someone has dropped the ball and a veteran has suffered the consequences. It happens. I witnessed it myself. It may not bejust Walter Reed, it may not bejust the Army, but to say that squalor and substandard medical care aresystemic in the military, particularly because of the strainplaced on the system by the Iraq war is just wrong.It is an attack on those who put me back together, from the Navy Captain who was the military's premier ocular surgeonfor the Pacific Rim, to the junior E-3 corpsman who kept my sprits up as the seasons changed. It is an insult to all those who have dedicated their lives to military medicine.

We should never be satisfied with the level of care provided to our veterans and their families. We should always raise the bar just a little higher. But we should also stop to recognize the progress we've made. Because of advances in military medicine, battlefield deaths are at an all-time low and survivability at all-time highs. But despite all the good that has been done, there are those with ulterior motives that see the medical care afforded the nation'sveterans as a political issueto beat their opponents about the head with.