Military Medicine

It is difficult to believe that the military bureaucracy cannot provide adequate medical care to its own soldiers who are returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe there should even be a priority for the soldiers who sacrifice their lives for their country to receive the best medical care available and the emotional and mental support needed to help them transition back into civilian life. The article from the Washington Post gives a short description of what it is like for a soldier returning home.

The typical soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands -- most of them off-post -- to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. The Army's three personnel databases cannot read each other's files and can't interact with the separate pay system or the medical recordkeeping databases.

No wonder soldiers are frustrated in addition to being plagued by stress, depression, and PTSD. Instead of the warm welcome and treatment the soldiers expect for being heros, the soldiers are isolated and neglected. Civilian care coordinators, case managers, and social workers who work at medical military facilities with good intentions are supposed to track injured soldiers and help them with appointments, but they often do not understand the bureaucratic system of the military and are also helpless to the system that they work in.

Why has no one noticed? I am sure if this issue was brought to the public attention, there would be a large public outcry that would lead to more structure and reorganization. In turn, the demand could facilitate more funds and legislation to provide support and medical services for soldiers. Before all of this, I think there needs to be more attention placed on the services of soldiers and the least we can do is to assist them when they get home because they are deserving of the same level of care that any of us receive at our medical facilities.