The Veteran’s Administration, now called the Department of Veterans Affairs headed by a cabinet level political appointee, has existed for decades. It is the best example we have of where so-called Obama Care is headed and what patients can expect when government bureaucrats control healthcare.
Only rarely does the public get a glimpse of what is going on in this huge government-run organization called the VA. Recently there have been media reports, apparently based on whistleblower information, that a VA Hospital in Arizona has been manipulating reports, and allegedly delayed treatment for hundreds of veterans. Someone reportedly allowed 10 veterans to die without adequate care.
Just as taxpayers fear the IRS and parents fear public school administrators, veterans fear the VA. They are fearful that if they complain, they will experience retaliation that could impact adversely the medical care they have earned and been promised by their government.
This writer has more than three decades experience with the VA medical services in Greenville and Columbia. With rare exceptions, the experience with treatment administered by the medical staff in Greenville has been exemplary.
Some veterans are totally dependent on the VA and MEDICAID for their health care needs. Their experiences are frequently different from those who have other options when critical care is needed. These veterans, and there are thousands, are totally dependent on the whims of Congress, the policies of the Administration in Washington and the union protected bureaucrats at the local level.
There is no denying the truth that medication and care is already being rationed for MEDICARE and VA patients resulting from budgetary and other decisions by the government. In addition to that, incompetence and other human factors come into play.
The experience of one elderly World War II veteran will illustrate what can and did happen at the Greenville VA Clinic about 20 years ago.
There is something about my career Army wife that attracts people in distress. She accompanied me on a visit to the clinic. We had been seated in the waiting room for only a few minutes when an elderly woman approached her and asked: “Can you please help us?” Her husband, either asleep or unconscious was slumped over in a chair nearby.
“My husband had a stroke yesterday,” she said. “I am legally blind and don’t have a drivers license, but I drove him to the hospital downtown. We were in the emergency room until after dark. After seeing a doctor in the emergency room and talking to a woman in the office, I was told that since we had no money and he was a veteran, that I should take him to the VA Clinic. I drove over here and the place was closed. We sat in the car until it opened at 8 O’clock this morning. We have been sitting here for three hours and a half. I checked in with that woman behind the counter. Every time I ask her when will he be seen she says ‘have a seat and he will be called.’ Can you or your husband please help? I am afraid my husband is going to die before he sees a doctor.”
I overheard the conversation and went to a nurse’s station in the other end of the building and asked a nurse if she knew that there was a stroke victim in the building that had been waiting all night. “Where is he?” she asked. She immediately grabbed a wheel chair and literally ran the length of the building, eased the apparently unconscious veteran into the wheel chair and rushed him to one of the treatment rooms where a doctor had been alerted and was waiting.
After meeting my appointment, I returned to the nurse’s station to thank the nurse and commend her for her immediate appropriate action. After a brief discussion of the circumstances, she asked if I would be willing to sign a statement. She said they had several complaints about the treatment of people by that employee, but everyone refused to sign a statement out of fear. I went to the administration supervisor and signed a written statement of circumstances, and was thanked by an obviously happy supervisor. I never knew the name of the patient or whether he survived the stroke, However, I did notice on my next visit that the employee was gone. I don’t know where she was transferred. She would be eligible for retirement before they could terminate her administratively.
Like most government agencies, the VA can’t be fixed.