With the legal atmosphere, they have no choice but send you in. Imagine you are a nurse with enough training to actually help people deal with their problems at home but because of the risk of lawsuits, all you can do is take the information, do nothing with it, and tell the person to to go the ER. It’s no wonder some lose the joy of their work and just skip to the end.
An old buddy of mine recently had surgery at the VA, he was feeling lousy and the wound was beginning to drain. I told him up front, he would need to call the surgeons office, wait a long time for the frazzled surgery resident to call back who would take all the information then tell him to go to the ER. I recommended calling from the ER, by the time the resident called back they would be about ready to take him to a room in the ER.
Unfortunately, it’s not much better on the civilian side. I worked in a civilian ER for about 15 years. Can’t count the number of people that came in with minor problems because they called ask-a-nurse.
I went to the VA ER not long ago and was treated in a matter of minutes. I’m on blood thinner and I had bumped my head. It was a nasty looking knot. I was immediately given a scan and luckily there was no bleeding.
Both times I went to the nearest ER I should have driven the 45 minutes to the VA ER and I probably would have been treated faster.
I told my wife “I may die someday being treated at the VA but so far I have no complaints.”