Pentagon investigating vets retirement home

updated 6:50 p.m. ET March 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - In the latest allegations of poor treatment for veterans, the Pentagon said Thursday it is investigating conditions at a veterans retirement home in the capital.

A medical team went for an inspection Wednesday after Defense Secretary Robert Gates got a letter from congressional investigators about allegations of a rising death rate and rooms spattered with blood, urine and feces at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington.

The letter also cited allegations of an increase in the rates of residents who are sent to hospitals and a case in which a veteran had a bedsore with maggots in the wound.

“We are going to take every complaint, and we are going to address it,” said Maj. Stewart T. Upton, a Defense Department spokesman.

Tim Cox, chief operating officer at the home, said the allegations were made by “unidentified critics,” were “without merit” and had not been investigated by the Government Accountability Office.

“Of course, this home has experienced incidents consistent with a nursing home environment,” he said in a statement, noting half the residents are older than 80 and many have chronic health conditions.

The 87-year-old resident who had the maggots had refused medical treatment, Cox said. He said that was no excuse and that eight employees were fired after an investigation “showed they failed to meet our high standards of care.”

The investigation comes a month after revelations about poor living conditions and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, also in Washington.

That scandal has forced the resignations of three high-level Army officials and led to a review of the vast network of clinics and hospitals run by the Veterans Affairs Department. The agency, in an investigation made public this week, found those facilities were beset by maintenance problems such as mold, leaking roofs and even a colony of bats.

The Washington retirement home, formerly known as the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home, opened in 1851 to wounded and disabled war veterans. It is home to more than 1,100 retirees.

Busloads of veterans escaping hurricane-devastated Mississippi were brought to the home in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina pounded its sister facility in Gulfport.

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