Walter Reed Red Tape And Veterans Care

Red tape blocks returning vets care
PETER URBAN purban@ctpost.com

Article Last Updated: 03/09/2008 12:33:57 AM EST


WASHINGTON — In the year that has passed since Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon told Congress of the neglect he suffered at Walter Reed Medical Center, the Army's premier hospital has begun to turn around.
"One of the first things they implemented was the Warrior Transition Unit. That is probably one of the best moves they ever could have made," Shannon said.

The unit provides wounded soldiers with a direct point of contact to help manage their recovery as they pass through the hospital and aftercare. Wounded soldiers now don't have to worry as much that they will be lost in the bureaucracy as he was when he arrived at Walter Reed in November 2004, said Shannon, 44.

"Anyone like me, an individual patient, has a lot more access to people to ask questions of those who have the responsibility to get things done," he said.

Five days after suffering a gunshot wound to the head that cost him an eye, Shannon was handed a photocopied map of Walter Reed's campus and directed to its outpatient Mologne House.

"I was extremely disoriented and wandered around while looking for someone to direct me to the Mologne House. Eventually, I found it. I had been given a couple of weeks' appointments and some other paperwork upon leaving Ward 58, and I went to all my appointments during that time," he told a Congressional panel last year. "After these appointments, I sat in my room for another couple of weeks wondering when someone would contact me about my continuing medical care.
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