Smaller military hospitals said to put patients at risk

[unhappycamper]

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/09/smaller-military-hospitals-said-put-patients-risk

Smaller military hospitals said to put patients at risk
By Sharon LaFraniere and Andrew W. Lehren
The New York Times
© September 2, 2014

HINESVILLE, Ga.

Every year, more than 25,000 Americans undergo surgery to correct a hiatal hernia, a condition in which tissue from the stomach bulges into the chest cavity through a hole in the diaphragm. The hernias often return, but major complications are rare. Hospitals stays are usually short.

Irene Smith, a 42-year-old cafeteria worker, wife of an Army sergeant and mother of three, was considered a good candidate for the procedure when she was evaluated in late 2007. A cardiologist’s report was especially positive. “Lost about 25 pounds, exercising daily, looks fantastic,” he wrote.

But more than a dozen operations later, Smith has lost her stomach, her health, her job and almost all semblance of a normal life. She must purée most of her food. From her esophagus to her intestines, she is such a jumble of abnormalities that two years ago one specialist declined to treat even her chronic cough for fear of making her worse.

~snip~

Smith underwent hernia surgery at Winn Army Community Hospital in Fort Stewart, Georgia, one of 40 hospitals across the country run by the armed forces. Her case illustrates what outside experts and dozens of current and former military hospital workers interviewed by The New York Times call a signal failing in a system that cares for 1.35 million active-duty service members and their families, among others.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. It's apparent the size of the facilities, is dwarfed, as an issue, by the

Underlying culture of substandard performance and callous complacency with inadequate patient-centered care.

Turn those facilities into reproductive health care centers like the one's the tea baggers want us to have. Crazier things have been said and done.

Clearly they are not working as is.

Interesting reading.
Thanks.
Lmsp

[merrily]

2. +1 The size of a particular facility within the US military system is so not the issue.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Truth. nt