“I think it — i think it cuts both ways. I think Americans are always very surprised to know the number of amputations, for example, which is fewer than 600 in total. They’re probably also surprised to know that 200,000 come to the VA for some kind of medical treatment. That’s probably more than they think.

As service-connected, disabled vet myself, if vets are going to the VA for “dental problems” as Nicholson states, in order to be eligible for dental service at the VA, vets must be 100% disabled. So Mr. Nicholson might not be lying, maybe just taking the numbers out of context. Ergo, whomever is showing up for ‘dental work’ must have a debilitating injury which render them 100% disabled.

LT. PAUL RIECKHOFF was totally on message about how bad things are for so many of our fellow military persons and their poor families. Wow, was all I could say.

Next, the sad JIM NICHOLSON came on. The guy is just like many have described here – a total loser who while he professes that he and his wife visit VA’s across the country, just seems totally out of place as an adminstrator for 230,000 workers in the VA system.

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Veterans Hospitals Struggle to Treat Brain Injuries

The Veterans Administration is unprepared to care for brain-injured Iraq war veterans once they leave rehabilitation centers and return home to VA hospitals, a new documentary reports. An advocate and the VA secretary discuss treating the injuries.

….JUDY WOODRUFF: Again, we saw — there was a report over a year ago, quoting a physician at Walter Reed — now, again, this is active duty — telling the reporter, “There is a distressing number of patients there who are not getting adequate screening and care. Many doctors,” he said, “know little about traumatic brain injury and are prone to making the wrong diagnosis.”

This is not new, is my question?

JIM NICHOLSON: Well, it is quite new. I mean, I can’t speak for Walter Reed, which is a Department of Defense facility. But the number that you used there for people that have had acute brain injury has been 312 people. And they have come to these centers that we established for that. Now, I’d like, if I could…

JUDY WOODRUFF: But out of 200,000 troops that have come out of Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s hard for people to believe only 320 or so have been diagnosed with this.

JIM NICHOLSON: Well, that’s the number that has been diagnosed with very acute brain injury. I’d like, if I could, to clarify that 200,000 number, because that was quoted kind of out of context.

But 206,000 people that have come to the V.A. are people who have come back from the combat zone, and that is people for all reasons, but they were not the people that, you know, have been — who are wounded in theater.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They were not all necessarily severely injured.

JIM NICHOLSON: That’s about 26,000, I think about half of those very seriously wounded. This is the number of people, because this grateful country of ours is giving these people, the National Guardsmen and Reserve, the right to come to the V.A. now for health care. And that is new.

So they come for all reasons, general medical maintenance. I mentioned that some do come for dental. Some come for a vision problem or hearing or an orthopedic problem….snip

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june07/veterans_02-28.html

Wankers.

Shame on Mr. Nicholson calling our servicemen and women a bunch of whiners. He probably gets the best of care, and he probably gets a pretty good room when he is laid up. Our troops deserve the best care and a decent place to stay while they are recovering from whatever injuries they suffer while in service to this country and after they are discharged, too. That is the deal we make with them when we pay them so poorly, for such a dangerous job. We promise we’ll take care of them.

I have called my representatives to demand his resignation. He is but another administration stooge selected for his position merely for his connections in the repugnant political party. Instead of defending Veterans, he has advocated the liar-in-chief’s cut and run budget for the VA even while demands for services by those maimed and injured in VietRaq has escalated. He should be sent back to the RNC. Lets get Max Cleland back to run the VA.

This is a quote from a GAO report to congress dated 2-1-06:

“VA lacked a methodology for making the health care management efficiency savings assumptions reflected in the President’s budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and, therefore, was unable to provide us with any support for those estimates. VA officials told us that the management efficiency savings assumed in these requests were savings goals used to reduce requests for a higher level of annual appropriations in order to fill the gap between the cost associated with VA’s projected demand for health care services and the amount the President was willing to request.”

The shoddy accounting practices VA is being criticized for using are simply lies they were forced to tell congress to cover up for the Bush administration’s deliberate underfunding of veteran’s health care for the last 4 years. All this while sending vets into harm’s way. What a disgrace!

There should be a special place in Hell for this bastard.

The Army/Marines are so overstretched that the military has changed its policy from immediately issuing medical military discharges as soon as the wounded are discharged from the hospital. In the past, these soldier patients were both hospital discharged and military discharged, and their care was transferred to the VA system or to civilian healthcare where they continued to be inpatients in rehabilitation, sub acute care, psychiatric care, etc. Since they are still being discharged from the hospital while still seriously ill/injured and recovering, the military transitions them to independent living as outpatients. This is the wrong level and type of care for patients unable to fend for themselves, as you saw on the Woodruff ABC report.

The military historically has focused healthcare on medevac/stablization and critical/acute hospital care at one end of the spectrum and well adult/child care on the other end, since service men and women are in overall underlying general good health. The military has never provided large scale long term rehabilitation and skilled nursing care, which is what is needed now for this soldier patient population.

I blog about it – as well as a plan for the military to alter its care – on my own blog. I sent the plan to the SecDef for use by the investigative panel.

But it comes down to needing round the clock professional nursing and rehabilitation therapy. The military barely has enough nurses for the frontlines and stabiliation. Without contracting with the VA and civilian rehabilitation facilities, I don’t see how the care that is critical can actually be provided.

Nicholson:”What I din’t tell you is that the head that the teeth are connected to, well, it doesn’t have a body attached”

That sick fu*ck NeoCon bastard.

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Side Note:

Strom Thurmond is related to Al Sharpton?

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Troops/Veterans

Mental disorders: 73,000
Diseases of nervous system: 61,000
Signs of ill-defined conditions: 7,000
Diseases of musculoskeletal system: 87,000.
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The numbers speak for themselves.

War is no good for absolutely anything.

It eats your mind and body up and spits you out, then it goes looking for more.

War is always hungry.

War never rests, never sleeps, never eats.

When will we, as a worldwide people, learn?

Check out Plunger’s stuff at http://plungerspeaks.blogspot.com