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Poor care at VA hospitals cost 1,000 veterans their lives, report says

US Conservative said:
Im sorry, you seem to think that saying "look over there!" is an acceptable answer. It is not.
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No, it puts it in perspective rather than dwelling on something that is not going to be fixed by simply complaining about it. It is the same thing that happens for a lot of things that deal with the military. One side or the other gets information, then blows it up and focuses on placing blame rather than finding out about the problem. I've complained about this very same thing happening when it comes to sexual assaults in the military. Yes, they happen, but not nearly as much as in the civilian world, yet when they happen in the military people concentrate on them with laser focus and want to make claims that our soldiers are all rapists and assholes who do nothing but hurt, even their fellow servicemembers. In reality, very few servicemembers ever sexually assault anyone when you look at the real data. And very little needs to be done, yet we still end up having to have additional "training" every time the media gets some report that says "xxx number of servicemembers have reported being sexually assaulted" or "xx% of women diagnosed by VA with PTSD from sexual assault".

That is the problem. While both sexual assault and the VA system are an issue, we know what caused the problem here, overloading of a system with rules that were unmeetable and instead of standing up to those passing down the rules, the people instead tried to work around them in a way that put people in danger (obviously). This is deeper than just those admins, but it speaks more about the people's unwillingness to force their congressmen to look into solving a problem rather than trying to react to a problem, resulting in little more than a "here's some Motrin and water" answer.
 

Who's "dwelling" on this? This scandal is recent, and the more the media does its job and digs-the worse we find out things have actually been.
I dont think our vets deserve this treatment, and I WILL hold all involved accountable. Deal with it.
 
US Conservative said:
Who's "dwelling" on this? This scandal is recent, and the more the media does its job and digs-the worse we find out things have actually been.
I dont think our vets deserve this treatment, and I WILL hold all involved accountable. Deal with it.
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Then do something to fix it rather than looking for revenge. Fixing the problem is more than just holding people accountable.
 
roguenuke said:
Then do something to fix it rather than looking for revenge. Fixing the problem is more than just holding people accountable.
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He could start with the VA bill that still hasn't cleared congress.
The very same bill that his party filibustered several months ago.
Which could have been paid by the Cruz Gov't shutdown.

He knows little of what VA hospitals like Hines VA in the Chicago suburb of Maywood were going through in 2008.
I do since my elderly WW2 Dad was there at the same time.

Adding tens of thousands of maimed Veterans to an already overloaded VA system
must have been an unintended consequence of Iraq-2 which he wanted to go on in petpetuity .
 
roguenuke said:
Then do something to fix it rather than looking for revenge. Fixing the problem is more than just holding people accountable.
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How am I, a non-federal employee going to be privy to anything in Obama's cabinet? What we know is he made promises-years ago-to fix things for the VA as HE ended the wars-and yet what these vets got was nothing-nothing until they died. Thats not cool, and it will be resolved.
 
It will not be resolved with the current level of hospitals and doctors and nurses.
These are the unintended consequences that occur when war goes past 6 weeks.
You get tens of thousands of unexpected maimed Iraqi Veterans.
Added to an already swamped system of Korean/Vietnam/WW2 Vets about to die .

 

Politicians always make promises. Your point? Only a child votes for a politician based on his/her promises alone.

I have no idea what being privy to Obama's cabinet has to do with solving this situation. Anything that goes into solving this will require funding and bills from Congress. The President is the last person it goes through (unless he vetos it).
 

More evidence that govt run healthcare is destined to fail. Agreed.
 

Politicians making political promises resulting in actual deaths of Americans will be dealt with. Stop making excuses.
 
Have I$$A go after the people at the Phoenix VA Hoswpital.
Or would he be stepping on McCain's toes?
US Conservative said:
Politicians making political promises resulting in actual deaths of Americans will be dealt with. Stop making excuses.
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And where has McCain been with the VA, other than shooting off his mouth war-mongering and sustaining McConnell's filibuster ?
 
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US Conservative said:
Politicians making political promises resulting in actual deaths of Americans will be dealt with. Stop making excuses.
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That is true for a lot of things. But politicians making political promises that they do keep can result in actual deaths of Americans as well. That isn't an excuse, it is just simply fact. In reality, it wasn't the political promises that led to the actual deaths. It was the crappy system of healthcare we have. No political promises actually killed those vets. Stupid practices of government employees very well may have contributed to those deaths, but it wasn't the political promises that did this.
 
NIMBY said:
Have I$$A go after the people at the Phoenix VA Hoswpital.
Or would he be stepping on McCain's toes?

And where has McCain been with the VA, other than shooting off his mouth war-mongering and sustaining McConnell's filibuster ?
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Question: Who is the head of the Veterans Administration and all cabinet level departments of the executive branch?

A. Big Bird
B. John McCain
C. Barrack Obama
D. George Bush
E. Generic evil Republican
 

Its an excuse-an inexcusable one. If thats good enough for you fine, but if not I dont see why you continue to defend it. Americans died because of our Presidents incompetence, yet again.
 

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous “To Err Is Human” report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals.
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http://www.propublica.org/article/how-many-die-from-medical-mistakes-in-us-hospitals

Subtract the 1000 from this number and you will know how many die in private health care situations. No one gets up in arms over this. In fact, most people tend to agree with doctors that MDs' malpractice insurance is too expensive and that people should not be allowed to sue them.


BUT.........


The VA is part of the GOVERNMENT, so everyone goes ape **** when deaths due to neglect and/or malpractice happen, yet the number is only a tiny drop in the bucket if you look at the problem across the board. You give doctors a license to kill. Doctors will kill. It is DOCTORS in the VA who refuse to see an adequate number of people each day to keep the ball rolling. It is not clerks, or nurses, or techs. It is DOCTORS who will only see 3 patients a day, thus causing the huge backlog of patients who can't get appointments. And yes, I know. I've seen it.

Why don't you become incensed over the 97,000 each year who die at the hands of private providers? Why do you insist in their case that 'tort reform' is necessary to keep them in practice? Why do you even WANT them in practice?
 

Frankly, I don't give a **** about the non-veterans and they really have nothing to do with the VA Healthcare system. Each and every able bodied adult with a "sound" mind is responsible for themselves, the society has no responsibility towards them unless, like Veterans, they have provided particular service to the society. The less you give someone for free, the more they are motivated to get off their asses and do for themselves.

True, education does not always help. If you waste your time with a BS degree that has few or no job openings, then your justs as stupid as not taking any education. However, if you choose education in employable areas, you will always better yourself. Maybe not immediately, but working a crap job to get experience to move up is a hell of a lot better than working a crap job with no chance of advancement.
 

You mean the bill to dump more money into the system without fixing other problems? Like the fact that many of the problems at VA Hospitals were not lack of funding but positions that were funded but left unfilled. Administrative procedures that delay care.

That bill was nothing but an act by the Dems to try to mitigate the fallout from the scandals. Even the VA has told them money was not the issue in many of the cases. Sure, more facilities would be nice. But then, how do we pay for it? Interesting how the left is screaming about the right blocking the bill but you don't see the left fessing up cuts to their vote buying schemes to pay for it.
 
How do you propose to fill those positions called Doctors and Nurses?
I have shown an easy outline--similar to my own college tuition for mandatory chem/physics teaching in 1971.

All tuition paid--must serve internships in VA Hospitals and/or Veteran's Homes.
Must work for the VA for 5 years after receiving accreditation.

Now, many of these hospitals associated with Veteran's Homes are actually Catholic/Public hospitals.
Manteno VH has to alternate with St. Mary's and Riverside in Kankakee.
In Quincy, they go to Blessing Hospital for an emergency.


Btw, the VA bill would have built 27 new facilities.
Have you seen the shape of some of these VA facilities--I did for 38 years caring for my Dad until he died in 2012.



Why do you people always have to go swinging to the right blaming the left?
Sure does git er done eh ?
 
NIMBY said:
Why do you people always have to go swinging to the right blaming the left?
Sure does git er done eh ?
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Apparently reading comprehension wasn't part of what they taught you. Nothing in my statement blamed anyone for the problems.
 

Actually, there IS government responsibility to non veterans. The states license health care providers, and in so doing assume the role of policing them as well.
 


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“Very deep. You should send that in to the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you.”
― Douglas Adams
 
It's criminal and a national embarassment.

But it certainly didnt start with this administration.
 
Lursa said:
It's criminal and a national embarassment.

But it certainly didnt start with this administration.
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Nor did it start with public health care. The private sector is fraught with malpractice issue as well but, sadly, it is easier for the private sector to keep people in the dark and lure them into that old refrain doctors howl claiming their malpractice insurance costs too much. All they have to do is stop malpracticing. I have worked in 2 different VAs and a state hospital. Those places don't really attract the best MDs because, even though the pay is good, they can make far more in private practice. Many VAs have a lot of foreign doctors whose command of the language is poor, so the fewer patients they see on a daily basis the easier their job is. One of the places I worked, there was some expectation that providers would see a large caseload and most were able to keep up. The other one couldn't do a think about their doctors refusing to see but 3 patients a day. Think about this: We are paying lazy doctors $250,000 a year to see 3 patients a day. All the numbers and reports are available to the higher ups. I, my self, could pull up the information and see which and how many patients any given doctor saw in a day. One of the facilities got a lot of negative publicity following the death of some veterans because they were employing doctors to do surgeries they were unqualified to do and even had a doctor with a revoked license. IMO, there are only two answers to the problem. 1) Allocate more money. Or 2) require current providers to carry a larger caseload. I vote for 2.

Someone on a forum where I used to post said, 'if you work for the state, you will end up working for your secretary.' He was VERY right about this. Part of the problem is that non licensed personnel have authority over licensed personnel, and the non licensed personnel simply don't care about anything except how the numbers look because that is what gets them a raise or a bonus at the end of the year. I, myself, had no capability of scheduling or unscheduling patients. that was entirely up to clerical staff and it is clerical staff who have falsified the numbers, but may of them think the doctors are gods and collude with them so everyone does pretty much nothing all day long. I know of one clinician who would not schedule anyone until 6 weeks out. But I could look at her case load and see that she was only seeing 2 or 3 patients a day. I guess her thinking was, 'if they have something seriously wrong they will die before their visit and then I won't have to deal with it.' It would seem that, in the light of the numbers of veterans who have died waiting for appointments, she was dead on.

But, folks, let me remind you: As goes the government, so goes the nation. Private practices need to be cleaned up as well. And the problem in private practices is different in that providers will sock as many patients into their day as they possibly can so they will be able to make a lot of money. The schedules in private practices are too heavy and providers run people through like cattle. And their instance of malpractice is just as high as in the public sector if not higher.
 
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