Posted by
Ed Lilly on Monday, May 26, 2008 9:32:29 AM
Are injured soldiers returning from the war against Islamofascism getting poor medical treatment? According to this piece at Bloomberg.com, the answer is yes:
U.S. soldiers returning from the Iraq War with physical or psychological wounds are getting poor treatment from the military and veterans' health care systems, say a majority of Americans polled by Harvard University.
The conclusion regarding the quality of treatment may be correct, but are “Americans polled by Harvard University” able to accurately and correctly make this determination? Typically, polling is done with a random, representative sample of the population. So I take this result with a grain of salt.
But maybe there is a subset of data involving injured soldiers that more accurately answers the question, right? According to the story, there’s this:
People with a close family member now in the military, or who served in the past, had an even dimmer view of the quality of care offered to soldiers and veterans.
This is at least potentially helpful and informative. Presumably those with close family members currently serving in the military, or who served in the past, may be expected to have a more in depth knowledge of the medical treatment being given to currently injured service members. But that’s still going to consist of a lot of anecdotal evidence that should not be relied on too heavily in making a general conclusion.
So what’s going on with this story? Looks to me like it’s a case of the media telling us that perception is reality. And since they have already told us in prior reporting that medical treatment for wounded soldiers is poor, the survey results are largely a reflection of the success of their prior reporting in getting people to believe it. Hence, the following:
“There is a sense that this system has failed people who are wounded in Iraq,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who directs the university's program on public opinion and health and social policy. “More than six in 10 Americans believe that people are not receiving high-quality care.”
The survey follows highly publicized reports on inadequate treatment for soldiers who have suffered physical and mental injuries in the war, including a series of articles about decrepit conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington that won the Washington Post a Pulitzer Prize.
The Bloomberg story is interesting, but not entirely convincing as a measure of the quality of medical treatment being given to injured soldiers. To the extent the American public wants to see this type of medical treatment improve, the story does have this interesting comment:
The survey also found that of the presidential candidates, Republican John McCain is viewed as most likely to improve veterans' health care.
Hmmm. So will the Democrats start urging voters to switch allegiance and support McCain? After all, it's for the troops! And a lot of those injured soldiers have families. So it's also for the children!
William Katz, at his excellent blog, Urgent Agenda, has another interesting post on a different aspect of medical care for injured soldiers. He cites extensively from an article posted by the AARP. Here’s the setup:
At that moment, Cynthia became one of a growing number of parents who are, by necessity, stepping back into the role of caregiver for their children who are returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with debilitating and often long-term injuries. According to officials from three national organizations—the Wounded Warrior Project, The Military Family Network,, and the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes— an estimated 10,000 recent veterans of these conflicts now depend on their parents for their care. Working unheralded, these parents have quit jobs, shelved retirement plans, and relocated so they can be with their injured sons and daughters. Many have become warriors themselves, fighting to make sure this new wave of injured veterans gets the medical care and rehabilitation it needs.
The portion of the article quoted by Katz goes on to note that the survival rate for injured soldiers in the ongoing fighting is very high. Apparently there are approximately 6 deaths per 100 injured soldiers in the current conflicts, compared with 28 per 100 in Viet Nam and 38 per 100 in WW II. Clearly, advancements in treatment of battlefield injuries has improved dramatically. But as the article also notes, and the statistics above would indicate, the fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan have become “a war of disability, not a war of deaths.”
Sobering stuff as we pay tribute to those who serve to protect our country's freedoms.