Shortages could be hurting Army health care
By Laura Ungar
Gannett News Service
Posted : Saturday Jan 12, 2008
Injured in a roadside blast in Iraq, Sgt. Gerald Cassidy was assigned to a new medical unit at Fort Knox, Ky., devoted to healing the wounds of war.
But instead of getting better, the brain-injured soldier from Westfield, Ind., was found dead in his barracks on Sept. 21. Preliminary reports show he may have been unconscious for days and dead for hours before someone checked on him.
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., linked his death in part to inadequate staffing.
The Army is investigating the death and its cause, and three people have lost their jobs.
“By all indications, the enemy could not kill him, but our own government did,” Bayh told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Not intentionally, to be sure, but the end result apparently was the same.”
As more wounded soldiers return from war, critics say staff shortages and turnover have affected the quality of health care at Army posts across the nation.
Overall, the Army’s Medical Corps has downsized significantly since the Persian Gulf War in the 1990s, dropping from 5,400 to 4,300 physicians and from 4,600 to 3,400 nurses.
According to the Department of Defense, more than 29,000 service members have been wounded in action in Iraq or Afghanistan in the last six years, compared with fewer than 500 in Operation Desert Storm.
I am seriously considering adding a post of the day for DID YOU KNOW? I keep finding more and more reports on my blog that reporters have forgotten about. All the reports they have done lately have been complaining about now but ignored yesterday.
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