There's a new report out about the VA hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. That's the hospital where the phony lists of waiting times by vets for care were first uncovered. At that hospital (and some others), vets were put on a waiting list to get on a second waiting list for appointments. Then the hospital only made the second list public, so it looked like the waiting times were less than two weeks when the reality was more like six months. Veterans died while waiting for their appointments. Three years later, not much has changed. The new report focuses on just one segment of the VA hospital: the suicide prevention unit. According to the report, on a great many occasions, vets came to the hospital to seek help because they were thinking of suicide and these vets were turned away without treatment or help and just put on a waiting list. There were a number of suicides by vets after they were denied treatment.
Think about what this report means. Imagine a soldier who is wounded on the battlefield and is bleeding profusely. Someone yells for a medic. The medic comes over and hands the soldier a number and says, "I get back to you some time in the next three weeks."
There are certain times when the VA just cannot turn people away. Sure, if fifteen men walked into the hospital and each said that he was suicidal, there might be a temporary shortage of caregivers who could intervene in the situation, but then there ought to be more on call. And to be clear, that is not the problem uncovered at the Phoenix VA hospital. Failure to treat potentially suicidal vets was not due to temporary surges; it was a regular ongoing occurrence.
If we had a federal government that had even minimal competence, there is no way that this latest problem would be happening. Washington, and to be more precise the Obama administration has had more than three years to get the problems at the VA hospitals under control. Clearly, what has happened is that no one in the White House truly cared about the plight of the vets. The issue was treated as a political problem. Obama and his people worried about how the public would perceive the problem BUT NOT ABOUT FIXING THE PROBLEM!!!!
We need a completely new administration that will bring new leadership that will focus on fixing problems rather than on the political fallout of the problem. We truly need to get the Democrats out of there.
Think about what this report means. Imagine a soldier who is wounded on the battlefield and is bleeding profusely. Someone yells for a medic. The medic comes over and hands the soldier a number and says, "I get back to you some time in the next three weeks."
There are certain times when the VA just cannot turn people away. Sure, if fifteen men walked into the hospital and each said that he was suicidal, there might be a temporary shortage of caregivers who could intervene in the situation, but then there ought to be more on call. And to be clear, that is not the problem uncovered at the Phoenix VA hospital. Failure to treat potentially suicidal vets was not due to temporary surges; it was a regular ongoing occurrence.
If we had a federal government that had even minimal competence, there is no way that this latest problem would be happening. Washington, and to be more precise the Obama administration has had more than three years to get the problems at the VA hospitals under control. Clearly, what has happened is that no one in the White House truly cared about the plight of the vets. The issue was treated as a political problem. Obama and his people worried about how the public would perceive the problem BUT NOT ABOUT FIXING THE PROBLEM!!!!
We need a completely new administration that will bring new leadership that will focus on fixing problems rather than on the political fallout of the problem. We truly need to get the Democrats out of there.
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