For years, employees at a Texas VA
complained that their bosses were cooking the books. For years, the VA
insisted there was no widespread wrongdoing.
Last week, President Obama pledged to address allegations of corruption and dangerous inefficiencies in the veterans’ health-care system. But before the president could deliver on his pledge, the scandal has spread even further. New whistleblower testimony and internal documents implicate an award-winning VA hospital in Texas in widespread wrongdoing—and what appears to be systemic fraud.
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I had a friend that had shrapnel in the groin area. I told him take is records to the VA in the DFW area and since it was service connected he could get the remaining shrapnel removed. He left the OR without his balls. I nearly cried when he told me. After 2-3 try's and at least the penis pump works..
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. They left gauze in when they sewed me up from my Laryngectomy and I almost choked to death a few nights later.
DeleteI hate to tell you, but the same kind of stuff goes on in private hospitals with private doctors every single day all over the country. 100,000s of incidents every year that result in death or serious problems that could have been avoided. The difference is that the VA is fair game for the public microscope. When I lived in Gainesville, FL, there was a very good VA, a teaching hospital right across the street, and two private hospitals. A young college baseball player died of cardiac arrest after shoulder surgery due to an anesthesia reaction that was ignored until it was too late. A baby had the wrong leg cut off. This happened at the Teaching hospital. It did make the local papers for the UFL ball player, but not national news. Speaking about leaving the gauze in, this happened to me in the hospital after my first child was born - it was the six week checkup before that was figured out - a wonder I didn't die from infection.
ReplyDeleteWhy do these problems go on year after year and nothing substantive happens to correct it? Lots of regs, lots of laws, lots of inspections, but it still goes on unabated.
But then again, maybe the VA deserves a harder hit when you see stories like this (not really cuz this happens in private hospitals as well):
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/05/29/the-va-potemkin-village-dont-make-federal-workers-look-bad/
Oh, boy and we hope to think that these are isolated instances.
Delete"Like" a crime syndicate? I'm sorry, but running a racket at the expense of patients for the enrichment of politically connected bureaucrats is the very definition of a crime syndicate. We just like to pretend it's somehow different because the racketeers draw a government paycheck.
ReplyDeleteRight on again. :)
DeleteI would say the whole health care system is run as a racket - Obamacare will not do anything to fix that - just know that in cities and countries where doctors have gone on strike, the death rates went DOWN.
ReplyDeletein cities and countries where doctors have gone on strike, the death rates went DOWN.
DeleteWhoa.