Posted on 05/25/2014 6:51:02 PM PDT by SilvieWaldorfMD
Having a convo with a friend, who says that I am wrong when I told her that VA hospitals are run by civilians. Am I wrong? A quick Google search would not answer my query.
Thanks!
Around 80% of all VA hospital workers are Union workers. The Unions are one of the main barriers against fixing the problem.
I deliver to a VA hospital and have never seen a military uniform there.
The VA is staffed and run by people who are hired with the proper licenses (e.g. MDs and RMs and administrators) . One does not have to be a veteran...and that is a good thing. The folks in DC set stupid regulations and the punish when ‘goals’ aren’t met. No ‘civilian’ hospital would be run like the VA
Would you say that the Democrats are really running the VA?
You don’t have to be a veteran, but it is getting very difficult to get hired on now without being a veteran.
I go to my VA for treatment 1-2 times per month and if you want to see socialized medicine just go there and sit and listen. I think they are down to only one primary doctor because it seems like everyone complaining is for the same reason. Their meds ran out and it takes weeks to get them refilled. I have the same problem myself and it is a pain to get them refilled because the doctor has to put them in but getting to the doctor is tough.
It is the pharmacists of the VA who have the meds tied up due to the fed regulations. I told a nurse I wanted to talk to the pharmacist consultant. She said it was there for the docs not the vets. I have built four clinics. I have had to spend budget $ for the politicians and VA groundbreaking song and dance show. All the VA big wigs have undercover cops that travel with them. Out of all of them the Bonham Tx hospital was the best to me.37 years dealing with the VA. Houston ( DeBakey) went to shit when they brought all the Katrina (New Orleans) employees to work there.. Shamers to the max!
Yes. Civilian VA Employees, contractors and volunteers.
Some personnel are allowed to use work hours as ‘union hours’ and then charge for overtime for work hours. This is money that could have gone to patient care:
“VA “employees not performing government work could compromise the well-being of our nation’s veterans,” the senators write.
The senators are questioning a federal practice dubbed “official time,” whereby taxpayers foot the bill for salaries and benefits for federal workers who perform union duties instead of the “jobs they were initially hired to do,” the senators note.
The VA is now paying for an overtime “surge” to cut its huge claims backlog, while VA workers do union work, the senators note, tax dollars that could instead be spent on vets.”
also, there’s the nursing problem, as in a problem of nurses having necessary rudimentary skills:
http://www.businessinsider.com/too-many-nurses-at-the-va-dont-know-what-the-hell-theyre-doing-2012-5
forgot to add, and then there are those workers, who can’t be bothered to sterilize equipment, resulting in spread of HIV and hepatitis:
Substandard Hygiene Practices At Some VA Hospitals
“At the St. Louis VA medical center, the cleaning of reusable dental equipment was unsatisfactory between February 2009 and March 2010...The Committee said that even after actions by a dentist employed by VA from 1982-2010 came to the public’s attention, the VA has shown an apparent lack of leadership and has not fully acted in response.”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/226889.php
Of course, there are some great people working for the VA and I am thankful for them. I’m highlighting some of the worst stories to help with your ‘argument’.
Is this woman blaming the VA crap on the military?
I do not understand why you say this. I have worked for the VA for 25 years as a pharmacist. If a patient wants to talk to a pharmacist he will talk to a pharmacist. The same can be said for the Doctors and Nurses.
The majority of the care givers do a great job under most difficult circumstances. I would also estimate that about 20% should be fired tomorrow morning.
The VA brings out the best in most care givers. It also brings out the worst in a few. I presonally know many nurses and doctors and pharmacists that have given many hours of work without any compenstion for their off the clock hours. I know one doctor that will actually make house calls for the Vets. They as I do it for the Vets.
Those Vets are the ones that picked up MI Garands, M16s, climbed into tanks, hit beaches, fought in rice paddies, deserts, and jungles, flew B17s, B24s, B29s, Sabers, F4s, F100s, F104 etc. Many of those died in the deserts, paddies, jungles and many of those planes and men did not return to home base or return at all. Even more returned with terrible physical injuries and mental trauma. I serve and love those vets.
The problem with the VA is a vast overbearing inefficent beuracracy that makes it very difficult for us to provide quality care for our warriors.
The problem is not one of money if the budget were spent wisely. The problem is government bureoracy that can not be solved by government.
However the solution is not difficult but politically very difficult.
The VA has great facilities and "mostly" great personel working there. We should turn the VA over to private interprise to run the facilities on a for profit basis. The governments only role should be to make sure these funds are spent properly and most importantly give the vet access to quality care. If a facility is substandard it should be closed and the vets divertered to private facilities. If a private enterprise has true and free authority to fire the few bad employees we would not need to close any VA as it would quickly come up to a high standard.
She kinda was. (Liberal mentality of sorts).
I put her in her place last night, though, with my FR ammo... you’d be proud of me!
Are government employees civilians? TSA? BLM? IRS?
That’s not true. Being a vet gives you extra ‘points’ on the scoring but it is not the main thing. There are not enough nurses and filling the postings is tough because the government process takes so very kong(as much as 6 months before the background checks even begin) that candidates take jobs with real companies rather than wait around for decisions. The same is true for docs.
Ancillary personal it may be true but the licensed personal not
No I would say rather that the VA is like ALL large bureaucracies....it is slow to respond, tends to build layers of faux administrators, wants to dictate from the top down, has no clue as to what effect ‘orders from above’ have on the workers, and in general is a vast slow drying cement pit
Yes, that is the official policy.
IF you have two people with the same credentials ( and that almost NEVER happens) then the vet gets preference. Just because you are a vet does not make up for lack of credentialing and experience.
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