March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The shortcomings in the housing and treatment of wounded U.S. soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington exist throughout the military health-care system, Representative John Tierney said during a hearing at the center.

"These problems go well beyond the walls of Walter Reed," Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of a House oversight subcommittee, said today. "As we send more and more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, these problems are only going to get worse."

The Washington Post reported last month that dozens of recuperating soldiers live in dirty and pest-infested housing at Walter Reed and that hundreds have faced daunting bureaucratic obstacles to obtaining follow-up care for their injuries.

Representative Henry Waxman, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, said that the exposure of poor treatment at the center has sparked complaints from injured veterans and their families across the country.

"People are flooding us with complaints that it's not just Walter Reed," Waxman said. "We want an answer from the administration. What are we going to do to make things right for our injured heroes?"

Army Secretary Francis Harvey resigned March 2 and the commander of the medical center, Major General George Weightman, was removed from his post in the wake of the Post's articles.

"Mistakes were made and I was in charge," Weightman testified today.

`Need of Repair'

"Twenty-six rooms in Building 18 were in need of repair," Weightman said. "We should not have allowed that to happen."

"Also we did not fully recognize the frustrating and bureaucratic processes that these soldiers go through," Weightman said. "We obviously missed the big picture."

He said corrections in treatment are being made and soldiers are being moved out of substandard housing.

President George W. Bush said March 3 that he's creating a bipartisan commission to investigate the care given to wounded service personnel.

Vice President Dick Cheney told a Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Washington today that the administration has made "very clear" its priority is resolving the situation at Walter Reed.

"There will be no excuses, only action," Cheney said. The administration also will "find out whether similar problems have occurred at other military and VA hospitals," he said.

Two injured veterans testified this morning that as outpatients they lived in government-run housing plagued by mold and were treated indifferently by the center's overworked staff.

`Wasn't Fit'

"It wasn't fit for anybody to live in a room like that," Specialist Jeremy Duncan said of the room he was assigned to while recovering from a fractured neck suffered in Iraq.

Staff Sergeant Daniel Shannon said that after his initial treatment for a gunshot wound to the head he suffered in Iraq, "I sat in my room for another couple of weeks wondering when someone would contact me about my continuing medical care."

The panel's top Republican, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, called the outpatient care "a broken process" and said that the soldiers "have every reason to be disillusioned, even bitter, about frustrations and indignities they endured."

Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, the Army's surgeon general and commander of the center between 2002 and 2004, said the care and housing at the center "has not met our standards," and is being corrected.

He said he is also working on an Army investigation into conditions at another 11 facilities.

"We know that we've got a brick and mortar problem and we're fixing it," Kiley told the panel.

Senior Leadership

Weightman was removed because the service's senior leadership had "lost trust and confidence" in his abilities to correct the substandard conditions at the facility, the Army said in a statement March 1.

The Army named Major General Eric Schoomaker, 58, as the new commander for Walter Reed. Schoomaker, currently commanding general of the Army's Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is the brother of outgoing Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jay Newton-Small at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington at jnewtonsmall@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 5, 2007 13:55 ES

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