US:Wounded soldiers and their relatives have described to congressmen substandard conditions and chaotic bureaucracy at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, the top military hospital in the United States.
As a congressional committee went to the hospital itself for its first hearing into conditions at Walter Reed, the White House promised to investigate whether other military hospitals throughout the US had similar problems.
Staff Sgt John Daniel Shannon told the congressmen that he was released from Walter Reed less than a week after he was shot in the head, suffering traumatic brain injury and the loss of an eye.
He was given a map of the hospital complex and told to find the building in which he was assigned to live while receiving out-patient treatment. "I was extremely disoriented and wandered around while looking for someone to direct me," he said.
Staff Sgt Shannon said he has spent two frustrating years battling with bureaucracy to get the treatment he needed, as officials lost his paperwork and left him for weeks without any guidance. It appeared to him that the system was designed to reduce the cost of caring for veterans.
"I have seen so many soldiers get so frustrated with the process that they will sign anything presented to them just so they can get on with their lives," he said.
"We have almost no advocacy that is not working for the government, no one that we can talk to about this process who is knowledgeable and we can trust is going to give us fair treatment and informed guidance."
Army specialist Jeremy Duncan, who lost sight in one eye, suffered a broken neck and almost lost his left arm when a home-made bomb exploded, was housed in a building with black mould on the walls which he described as unfit for anyone to live in.
"I know most soldiers that come out of recovery have weaker immune systems and black mould can do damage to people. The holes in the walls - I wouldn't live there even if I had to," he said.
Annette McLeod, wife of Cpl Wendell McLeod who received a head injury in Iraq, said her husband had been through the "nightmares" of the army medical system. "For a long time, it seemed like I was the only one who cared," she said. "Certainly, the army didn't care. I didn't even find out that he was injured until he called me himself from a hospital in New Jersey. This is how we treat our soldiers - we give them nothing. They're good enough to go and sacrifice their life and we give them nothing. You need to fix the system."
House oversight committee chairman Henry Waxman said the conditions at Walter Reed, which were revealed in a series of articles in the Washington Post two weeks ago, "may be the tip of the iceberg of what is going on all around the country".
He cast doubt on army claims that it did not know about the problems at Walter Reed and suggested that outsourcing could be to blame for the substandard care. "We've contracted out so much in this war," he said. "We are using mercenaries instead of soldiers, we contracted out this as well."
President George Bush has ordered an investigation into the care offered to wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and White House spokesman Tony Snow has promised swift action to improve conditions.
"It's time to shine a bright light on the entire system and find out where the failings may be and address them," Mr Snow said yesterday. "The people who have served have given us their best; it's time for us to make sure that they get our best when it comes to treatment."