This marine plans to remain a patient at the VA — all the better to monitor its risks and progress.
Posted on 06/07/2015 1:31:16 PM PDT by Zakeet
Seth Moulton had earned two medals in Iraq for his valor. He’d witnessed brutal combat in four tours with the Marines. But none of that mattered when he showed up at the Veterans Health Administration hospital in Washington, D.C., where staff could not find records.
“We’ll consider taking you as a humanitarian case,” a hospital staffer told Moulton, unaware that the would-be hernia patient was also a newly elected Massachusetts congressman.
Thus began Moulton’s frustrating experience with the Veterans Affairs health system, a personal sampling of a chronically troubled medical bureaucracy that has drawn complaints from veterans, demands for improvements from Congress, and multiple investigations.
“If it wasn’t so sad, it would have been comical,” Moulton said in an interview as he recounted his VA odyssey.
In addition to enduring missing records and computer glitches, Moulton said, he was prescribed the wrong medicine, which in his case did not imperil his health but is in the category of a medical error that can be extremely dangerous in some cases, even fatal.
The VA refused to discuss Moulton’s case, citing patient privacy laws, even after Moulton gave the administration written and verbal authorization to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
This marine plans to remain a patient at the VA — all the better to monitor its risks and progress.
The VA is another dysfunctional Government entity. that seems to serve only itself. I speak from experience and have earned the right based on 22 years of service to this country. I won’t go back to the place, and I feel sorry for those who have no other choice.
Son’s ex’s mother had a cancer diagnosis delayed for months, going from possibly treatable to fatal. Where at a normal facility, you would be in for an X-ray or Cat Scan possibly the same day or within a couple of days turned into months.
...and yet he remains a dem. go figure.
sorry to heat that. My experience with the va has been favorable.
The real issue at the VA, IMHO, is that the civil service employees are UNION, with almost no risk of losing their job.
Their agenda is their 30 year plan to retirement and the patients, individually or collectively, are not on their 30 year agenda.
It is the same with almost any fed, state or local governmental agency/bureaucracy (except the military services which are not unionized).
I'm sorry for your VA experience, but dysfunctionality starts with management and trickles down.
My experience at my VA clinic and hospital has been top notch.
From regular office visits to my cataract surgery, nothing but competence and professionalism.
Good, caring competent managers is what's needed to fix the problems.
Not all VA hospitals are the same, naturally, almost all are worse than this one.
How do we fix them? Seems like the only answer that ever works with government is to stop letting it be government’s job. There really is no way around this. Government hospitals do not succeed. They will always fall to failure because no matter how well set up they begin as, they will immediately fall under government standards for promotion based upon race or gender, an ever growing cost increase as more and more employees reach the next grade of government service, plus those extremely generous benefits that bankrupt just about everything.
And it really doesn’t matter what you’re talking about, from Indian Health Service to the VA, time and time again, it is just a clock punching job. It needs the constant revitalization (and hunger) that comes from charity.
At the end of the day, we can’t afford to trust the government to do any job. We can’t trust them to collect taxes (loopholes and ‘progressive’ taxes, chosen audits of personal vendettas), field a national military (a job much more well suited to the states), or even run a space program (Apollo was a rare exception to start, but all too soon fell into the old trap of generous contracts to donors.)
How do you fix a government health care program? Simple answer: Disband it. More extensive answer: Limit any government employee’s annual salary to equal no more than median household income in the area they are serving.
Once people start simply punching the clock, that’s all they do.
Amtrak - Public Union
US Postal Service - Public Union
IRS - Public Union
EPA - Public Union
VA - Public Union
TSA - Public Union
Education Department - Public Union
They are all Public Unions and nothing will ever be fixed or operate properly so long as the Union thugs come first and the American people (services) come second, including all veterans!
82nd ABN Div. 1/508th BN
How can any Marine be a Democrat?
The problem with the VA isn’t a few bad employees.
And the VA, at lower levels, has some great people.
Look at the recent news stories about food stamps and social security disability. There is an organized effort by the Democrats to loot the public treasuries.
My guess is that in the opening days of the Obama Administration, every big department head was brought to the White House for a discussion concerning what their department or bureau could do to help the Democrat Party.
The VA’s mission from the Democrats? Hire Democrat voters and keep expenses down so that money that could go to Veterans would be used to buy Democrat votes.
One who was raised by parents who hate America. It’s really as simple as that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.