Ohh no...
Posted on 04/05/2006 9:58:30 AM PDT by blu
I hear you about it being unsat, but it is the sad reality of the situation. I have no doubt that there are some career bureaucrats in some of these offices who could care less about people's problems, but there are alot of vets that work for organizations like the DAV and VA who know how to work the system. It would be in this woman's interest to contact them, and hopefully she will get one of the good guys.
I went through a disability review a few years ago and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) represented me. There are many organizations who do this kind of thing. When I was retired there were actually two of these orgs in offices on base that I checked out with.
They can be real helpful. Somewhere in Vermont they will have these guys. There should be a State government veterans office as well that might be able to help.
VA: Veteran Abuse.
Ohh no...
I hope she can use the info, but she needs to take it from there.
Contact the Inspector General at the local VA hospital. DO NOT speak to a subordinate talke to the head of the IG. The enjoy pissing off the bureacracy.
From my experience this is one of the only ways to get something done. My father's case was shunted from Committee to Committee until went to the IG on a friday. By the time I flew back to my home on Monday, the proper people were calling me and him to arrange for his appointments and medical care.
No doubt the VA has a difficult job with good people trying to make a difference.
My problem is that poor expectations seems to be an entrenched, cultural problem. If every office employee came to work with the attitude "Today, I am not going home until we knock out one extra case", over time that could ease the suffering of our veterans.
I see little accountability for the dysfunction. The suffering it causes is a national obscenity.
I saw the same thing happen with a friend of mine who had retired with dental problems, that could not be resolved due to an extended deployment before he got out. " No problem the VA will handle it."
After 11 months of jumping through hoops, he was authorized to have the work done by a civilian dentist in a new outsource program. After seeing the Dentist for an estimate, it took 3-1/2 months to get the final authorization for the dentist to perform the work. The Dentist had to call the case worker and verbally threaten to report her to the State Health Department. After the threatening phone call to "Shaniqwa", the authorization paperwork was faxed within 3 hours!
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