Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 6, 1 June 2007 — What happens to injured guardsmen returning home from Iraq? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

What happens to injured guardsmen returning home from Iraq?

Rūwena Akana TrustEE, At-largE

£ k no'ai kākou. Last month, I / \ met with several injured J. A.beneficiaries in the Hawai'i Army Nahonal Guard who called my office about problems they were having with their medical care in the Army's new Medical Retention Processing Unit (MRPU). After listening to the shocking treatment that they were receiving, I called the offices of Sen. Daniel Akaka and Congressman Neil Abercrombie, and together we coordinated a meeting between the guardsmen and the Brigadier General of the Hawai'i Army Nahonal Guard. During the meeting, a disturbing pattern emerged. Problems with the MRPU After a Hawai'i Army National Guardsman gets injured in Iraq, he is sent to Tripler Army Medical Center for treatment and assigned a case manager to help coordinate his care under the MRPU Plan. The problem is that the case managers are not following the plan's guidelines. According to the soldiers, there is a huge disconnect between the medical personnel and their patients. Army doctors and case managers contradict eaeh other and confuse soldiers over their treatment plan. Some soldiers are told they will be having corrective surgery, and then later told they will only be given medication. Two Guardsmen who had the same caseworker complained that she was condescending and culturally insensitive. When there was a misunderstanding, this case-

worker refused to make appointments or prolonged their wait for treatment. When they asked for a different caseworker, they were denied and later harassed by hospital personnel for complaining. This is especially hard for loeal guardsmen who feel that their eoimnunieahon skills may not be the best. To make matters worse, the MRPU regularly loses or mixes-up the soldiers' files and doesn't allow soldiers to make eopies. They are also not given their medical records upon release to take to Veteran Affairs (VA). MRPU needs to ehange or go The biggest problem with the MRPU seems to be an "unwritten" rule in the plan to rotate soldiers out after they have received 365 days of medical care. Some are rotated out without a doctor's approval while they are still in need of operations and therapy. In several cases, a caseworker's signature appears where a doctor's signature should be, whieh goes against MRPU regulations. Non-medical personnel should not be prescribing treatments. Although an Army doctor may sign an extension for a soldier to eonhnue his treatment beyond 12-months, this is rarely done. Soldiers are left with nowhere to go except the Veteran's Hospital. Rotating National Guard soldiers out of the MRPU and sending them on to the VA appears to be an expedient way of getting rid of those wounded soldiers. These soldiers are suffering from serious injuries such as dislocated shoulders and blown-off kneecaps that haven't received all of the medical care they need to fully recover. Fixing half-a-soldier and sending them on to the Veteran's Hospital for the rest of their medical care is simply inhumane.

18-month wait for VA care To add insult to injury, because of the tremendous strain on the Veterans' hospitals due to the many soldiers and Army National Guardsmen returning from Iraq with serious injuries, there is an 18-month wait to be processed by the VA for treatment. This leaves the guardsmen without medical treatment for ahnost two years and takes a huge physical and psychological toll on the guardsmen and their families, many of whom cannot afford expensive surgeries on their own. All of these guardsmen are also suffering from psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, have trouble sleeping from sleep apnea and are in desperate need of continued treatment. Regular Army and the Army National Guard treated differently The guardsman assert, and rightly so, that they were wounded in combat and therefore should be treated by the Army until they ean return to duty or are able to go back to some sense of a nonnal life. Guardsmen being rotated out with only a meager 10-to-20-percent disability pay cannot support their families when they go back to civilian life or expect to get a job that ean. The Army should at least get them back into the best physical shape possible. There is a huge disparity between the treatment of Nahonal Guardsman and a full-time Army soldier when there should be none. They both face the same dangers on the frontlines and received the same horrific injuries. They deserve the same medieal attention. In fact, we need to help them more since they need to re-enter the civilian workforce when they get back home. The following needs to happen to improve their situation: • Either disband the MRPU or treat National Guardsman the same as full-time

Army soldiers if they have been injured or wounded as a result of being activated for combat duty. • Launeh an investigation of the MRPU, Tripler Army Medical Center and the procedures of the hospital's medical personnel and administrative staff as soon as possible. • Establish, in Army regulations, that Army Nahonal Guardsmen ean receive treatment from the MRPU until they are either ready to return to duty or ready to return to civilian life. • Establish stricter oversight over the Army's medical treatment system regarding wounded soldiers. I am very happy to report that since my inihal meeting with these Hawai'i Army National Guardsmen, there have been some positive results. Both the offices of Sen. Daniel Akaka and Congressman Neil Abercrombie have been diligent in addressing these issues with highest levels at Tripler Anny Medical Center. On the national level, Sen. Akaka is looking at ways to address the Guardsmen's concerns so that all Army National Guardsmen everywhere ean be treated with parody equal to any member of the armed services who serves on active duty. If you believe that our Hawai'i Army Nahonal Guardsmen, when injured in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else while serving on active duty, should be extended the same kind of medical treatment as our regular forces, I urge you to write to your loeal and federal elected officials to express your support for these soldiers. Mahalo nui. For more information on important Hawaiian issues, eheek out my website at www.rowenaakana.org. ^

— LEO 'ELELE ■ TRUSTEE MESSAGES