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FOR WOUNDED GIs, BATTLES DON'T END IN COMBAT
ZONE --
Dole / Shalala Commission listens to veterans
in San Antonio.
Former Sen. Bob Dole and former Sec.
Donna Shalala
Story here...
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/
metro/stories/MYSA050507.01A.C
ommission_Hearing.35bc654.html
Story below:
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For wounded GIs, battles don't end in combat
zone
Scott Huddleston
Express-News
With little sleep after a night of tossing in bed, Staff Sgt. John Tomek
detailed the struggle with his "invisible injury."
In spite of dozens of drugs he's taken and therapies he's tried, Tomek
still has pounding headaches and restless nights as a result of a
traumatic brain injury he suffered in a hard landing as a paratrooper in
1995. He aggravated his injury with a fall in 2003 as he trained for
duty in Iraq.
"As a matter of fact, I didn't get to sleep last night until 3:30,"
Tomek, now stationed at Fort McCoy, Wis., told a presidential panel
Friday in San Antonio at the group's first public hearing outside
Washington.
The President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded
Warriors has little time to study and try to resolve a tough issue: how
to better care for a growing number of wounded troops returning from the
Middle East. That's why members came to San Antonio, to hear from Tomek
and other injured service members.
Much of Friday's discussion centered on traumatic brain injury, or TBI,
an area of military care that's growing under new initiatives taking
effect this year to screen all war veterans at the military and VA
levels. But little of the testimony was as critical as Tomek's
indictment of a system he blames for long-term effects of his brain
trauma, including anxiety, confusion, memory loss, numbness and
tingling.
"I am now forced to deal with all of those conditions as well, the
unfair challenges I experienced with a medical system that is not fully
prepared for TBI patient identification, treatment, rehabilitation or
disability evaluation," he told the nine-member panel.
Diagnosing veterans such as Tomek whose injuries can't be seen through
most imaging systems poses a challenge for the military. But while
between 20 percent and 33 percent of troops return from the Middle East
with brain injuries, top-quality care is available through the Veterans
Affairs Department's four Level I polytrauma centers, and its 21 Level
II sites, said Dr. David Cifu, chief of physical medicine and
rehabilitation services at the VA in Richmond, Va.
"The amount of resources we have in the VA are way more than in the
academic and private sector," he said.
Cifu later added, however: "If you want some brain injury service, you
may have to do some traveling."
It's a relevant issue for San Antonio, since the city has Brooke Army
Medical Center, a major hub of military medicine, but no VA polytrauma
facilities where active duty wounded troops with brain injuries can
receive specialized therapy. The VA's four Level I sites are in
Virginia, Florida, Minnesota and California.
A proposed $30 million Level I site for San Antonio is on hold. It was
part of an emergency supplemental bill allocating funds for the war in
Iraq and Afghanistan that President Bush vetoed this week, objecting to
a congressional timeline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Where facilities are lacking, the VA needs to partner with academic
institutions that deal with brain injuries, Cifu said.
"We don't know everything (about brain injury), but we do know a lot,"
he said. "We're committing to a lifetime of care for these folks."
Other testimony focused on treatment and rehabilitation of burns and
amputated limbs at BAMC, and local and statewide initiatives to hire the
wounded.
But one weakness commission members and speakers repeatedly raised was a
lack of communication, cooperation and shared data among agencies and
departments that leaves veterans and their families wrestling with
bureaucratic hassles.
"The care they're receiving is first class," said former Health and
Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who co-chairs the panel and
visited troops at BAMC on Thursday.
But many say the system intended to provide a continuum of care "doesn't
even merit a third-class rating," she said.
Former Sen. Bob Dole, the commission's co-chairman, said the group's
process for recommending changes to the White House by late this summer
is not a "witchhunt" or a "whitewash."
"We've been assured that if we have some good ideas, they'll be followed
up by the executive branch and the Congress," said Dole, who was wounded
in World War II.
After the hearing, Dole said the San Antonio visit gave commission
members a chance to "feel, touch and listen" to the wounded and their
families. And since the panel includes two veterans wounded in Iraq, as
well as the wife of an injured Iraq veteran, it can quickly grasp the
complex, multifaceted issue of military health care and put it in a
personal perspective.
"They've been there, and they can ask pretty good questions," Dole said.
Commissioner member Tammy Edwards, wife of a wounded solider, also works
as a research assistant for a private foundation, recording data on
war-injured patients at BAMC.
She said she's confident leaders in Washington will back the panel's
recommendations and put the needs of veterans ahead of partisan
politics. The Defense Department and VA still have a long way to go in
treating brain injuries, but are making progress, she said.
"I think that eventually, what needs to get done will get done," she
said.
shuddleston@express-news.net
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Larry Scott --
