Defense secretary lauds wounded warrior care improvements

Picking Robert Gates is one of the best moves Bush could have made. People are even talking about how he should be kept on no matter who the next president is. Things have been changing for the better, but there is still much more that needs to be done.

Defense secretary lauds wounded warrior care improvements
by Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

10/23/2008 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The military has made "some significant steps forward" in caring for wounded warriors, the Defense secretary said during a Pentagon Channel interview broadcast Oct. 22.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said inpatient care provided to wounded warriors always has been world-class.

"We've never had a problem with that," he said, "and the medical treatment that our Soldiers and Marines and Airmen and Sailors get from the battlefield to these hospitals has no peer anywhere in the world."

The military has made "some significant steps forward" over the past year, Secretary Gates said, citing the services' creation of wounded warrior transition organizations.

"I think that the services have really taken a lot of forward steps in terms of improving care, having care managers who make sure that appointments get made and that they're sequenced correctly," he said.

Other improvements are under way with the disability evaluation system that's used to determine how much money injured servicemembers receive after they're discharged, Secretary Gates said, as DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs officials work together toward streamlining that process.

"We have a pilot (disability rating) program where there is just one exam and one rating between us and the VA, but it is just a pilot program," he said.

The secretary acknowledged that still more can be achieved in caring for wounded warriors.

"Part of the problem is we make decisions here and we budget money here for things, and it takes awhile, often, for that to trickle down to individual posts and bases and to the individuals involved," Secretary Gates said. "So, while I think we've accomplished a lot and we are headed absolutely in the right direction, there's no question that we still have further to go, and there's still a gap between where we want to be and where we are."

About $900 million in resources have been earmarked for treatment and research of servicemembers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, he said, and DOD officials will establish a Center for Excellence at Bethesda, Md., that will specialize in research and development in finding new treatments for PTSD and TBI.
go here for more
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123120828