Mentioning VA hospitals. In 1960, my father fell rather hard on a sidewalk while playing football with some of us. A bully was quite mean with us. This guy was huge compared to us so dad thought he would join in. He was tackled and landed extremely hard on the sidewalk..shattering his knee cap and other bones.
He was rushed to the local VA where he was told they would have to amputate. Mom, said, "no"!
She insisted that he be tranferred to another hospital where they put steel rods in his leg. Much of that hospital/doctor bill was paid by her money, not insurance.
It took many months for him to recover at home with a cast from toe to hip, but our help he did. :-) That was my first experience in changing bed pans...oh joy, just what an eleven year old wants to do. I learned early. ;-)
Must state, our local VA has always had a bad reputation. I'm not insinuating all are like that.