Editorial: Veterans’ care still deficient

Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.

The appointment of a presidential commission was one response to The Washington Post's revelation in February of the deplorable conditions endured by injured war veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's outpatient facilities.

The Post also wrote about the delays and confusion that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans encountered as they sought care for their war-related injuries.

The commission, led by former Sen. Robert Dole and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, presented its report, titled, "Serve, Support, Simplify," to President Bush in July. The report stressed the crucial importance of ensuring that all medical care and administrative procedures are "patient-centered."

In the report's forward, the commissioners wrote, "Making the significant improvements we recommend requires a sense of urgency and strong leadership."

These were qualities that should have pervaded all responses to the Post's articles, which included reviews by congressional committees and top administrators at Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon.

This week, however, the Government Accountability Office released a report assessing what has been done since February. The report's conclusions reveal that the presidential commission's call for strong leadership and a sense of urgency has not been fully answered.

Staffing shortages continue to plague reform efforts, according to the GAO report. Although the Army has begun to follow through on a new plan that stresses more personalized care, the GAO found that nearly half of all eligible returning war veterans are being denied the upgraded care because of a lack of people to administer it.

The report also said the government has made little progress on speeding the processing of disability claims, which now take an average of six months.

Additionally, the report said, veterans remain hampered by the inability of the Pentagon and the VA to electronically share most medical records.

To us, the lingering problems do not sound as if they should take years to fix. We hope the GAO surveys this situation again soon and finds vast improvement.