The Veterans Administration
The dead rats falling from the kitchen ceiling of one of the nation's busiest veterans hospitals show the facility's pest control efforts are working.
Neurosurgeon John Henry Schneider racked up more than a dozen malpractice claims and settlements in two states, including cases alleging he made surgical mistakes that left patients maimed, paralyzed or dead.
He was accused of costing one patient bladder and bowel control after placing spinal screws incorrectly, he allegedly left another paralyzed from the waist down after placing a device improperly in his spinal canal. The state of Wyoming revoked his medical license after another surgical patient died.
Schneider then applied for a job earlier this year at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Iowa City, Iowa. He was forthright in his application about the license revocation and other malpractice troubles.
But the VA hired him anyway.
-Donovan Slack, USA TODAY 
“In the now-infamous VA scandal of 2012-2015, the nation was appalled to learn that 1,000 veterans died while waiting to see a doctor,” wrote Adam Andrzejewski, the founder and CEO of Open the Books, in an editorial for Forbes.
“Tragically, many calls to the suicide assistance hotline were answered by voicemail. The health claim appeals process was known as ‘the hamster wheel’ and the appointment books were cooked in seven of every ten clinics.”
“Yet, in the midst of these horrific failings the VA managed to spend $20 million on high-end art over the last ten years—with $16 million spent during the Obama years,” Andrzejewski said.
Dietetic technician Kelvin Gilkey has been a VA employee for 33 years. He recounted how PTSD-traumatized veterans in the mental health unit were served cockroaches on food trays on three different occasions last year.
Government, Science, Oops, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) animal experimentation chief claimed in a recent interview that no puppies were experimented on at the Richmond VA, but documents provided by the VA to Congress show the exact opposite... according to information provided by the VA to Congress in 2016, the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA medical center in Richmond, Va., experimented on dozens of puppies from early 2015 to late 2016.
For one procedure involving cardiac ablation, a process that entails scarring of heart tissue, the Richmond VA purchased 19 puppies between the ages of six and eight months from 2015 to 2016.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
A Houston veteran is going through the battle of a lifetime while trying to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs that he's not dead. Former Marine Joe Morris was wrongly classified as deceased on April 1 and his parents even received a condolence letter from the government; his wife is still getting them. "My mom called me up and said, 'Hey, you're dead.' I said, 'No, I'm not,'" Morris told KPRC.
Government, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
But when Dr. Gary D. Kao treated one patient at the veterans' hospital in Philadelphia, his aim was more than a little off. Most of the seeds, 40 in all, landed in the patient's healthy bladder, not the prostate. It was a serious mistake, and under federal rules, regulators investigated. But Dr. Kao, with their consent, made his mistake all but disappear. He simply rewrote his surgical plan to match the number of seeds in the prostate, investigators said.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
With Veterans Affairs hospitals giving botched radiation treatments to nearly 100 vets and exposing 10,000 to HIV and hepatitis viruses, veterans advocates and lawmakers say the VA health system is in dire need of proper oversight and funding.
"We're not accepting any new patients — not this clinic," the VA employee behind the desk says, without providing any extra information, assistance or follow-on guidance for treatment.
Government, Incompetence, Healthcare
There have been nearly 300 alleged sexual assaults at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities over three years, through the end of 2010, and many of the allegations were not reported to higher-ups by VA police as required by law, according to a government report released this week.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
(CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
With the war in Iraq over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, the VA is sorting through a backlog of more than 860,000 disability claims from American veterans. More than a quarter of those vets -- 228,000 -- have been waiting for a year or more. Rioux has been trying to get his disability claim fully processed since January 2011, shortly after he returned from Afghanistan. The litany of delays includes lost paperwork, long wait times for appointments and erroneous lab results. At one point, a doctor prescribed him medication for a bladder infection he didn't have; he'd never given as much as a urine sample.
Government, Incompetence, Healthcare
An Army veteran is seeking $10 million from the federal government, accusing a Veterans Administration nurse of repeatedly put ice packs on his penis after surgery, causing frostbite and gangrene and ultimately leading to the organ’s partial amputation.
The Veterans Affairs health-care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program. National Review editor Rich Lowry calls it “an island of socialism in American health care.” He is right. -Larry Kudlow
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) blocked the release of the names of hospitals where 19 veterans died because of delays in medical screenings, leading to calls for transparency from news outlets and a bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers.
The VA: "Exhibit A for the advantages of government provision of healthcare."
"...some of the best-quality healthcare in America at far lower cost than the private sector."
“Exhibit A for the advantages of government provision [of healthcare] is the veterans administration, which runs its own hospitals and clinics, and provides some of the best-quality healthcare in America at far lower cost than the private sector." -Paul Krugman, Former Enron Advisor
“If other health care providers followed the V.A.’s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system,” Rand reported.
Healthcare That Works
And the government has a particularly good record in medical care. Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment. -Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
Image: New York Times
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
(CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
More than 1.5 million medical orders were canceled by the Department of Veterans Affairs without any guarantee the patients received the treatment or tests they needed, the Washington Examiner has found... What happened to other 1.5 million appointments is something that no one, including top officials at the veterans’ agency, can answer.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The White House on Monday came under increased pressure to launch a criminal probe of the Veterans Affairs Department after an audit found more than 100,000 veterans were kept waiting for medical care... The audit found more than 57,000 veterans waited at least 90 days to see a doctor, and an additional 63,000 people over the past decade never received an initial appointment at all.
Enrollment in VA services has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2012. Despite a 76% increase in expenditures ($24 billion) over that period, the program still suffers from chronic budget problems.
Liberal, Government, Guns, Constitution
Documents obtained by The Daily Caller and interviews with American veterans reveal a shocking government program: The Department of Veterans Affairs is disarming America’s veterans by getting them placed on the FBI’s criminal background-check list. The VA sends veterans’ personal medical and financial information directly to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which can seize their guns in home raids. Veterans deemed mentally incompetent or financially incapable are finally speaking out about the errors in the system and the fearful harassment they and their families face from the federal government.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Socialism, Healthcare
The dead rats falling from the kitchen ceiling of one of the nation's busiest veterans hospitals show the facility's pest control efforts are working. That is what officials at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center said Monday in the wake of a Tampa Bay Times report that revealed the hospital is battling a severe infestation of rats and cockroaches. Haley spokeswoman Karen Collins provided some detail about the hospital's "vermin control" efforts that include rat traps placed on ceiling tiles in a kitchen that prepares food for hospitalized veterans and a canteen kitchen that serves veterans, staff and visitors.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Outraged over what they say are unfair and poor working conditions, employees at Detroit’s John Dingell VA Medical Center are rallying for change. A group of about 100 workers and supporters protested outside the hospital on Wednesday. “This is like a third world county here,” said Benjamin Mayhan, president of American Federation of Government Employees, Local 933.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Nearly 900,000 military veterans have officially pending applications for health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the department's inspector general said Wednesday, but "serious" problems with enrollment data make it impossible to determine how many veterans were actively seeking VA health care...
The report also says VA workers incorrectly marked thousands of unprocessed health-care applications as completed and may have deleted 10,000 or more electronic "transactions" over the past five years.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
More than 1.5 million medical orders were canceled by the Department of Veterans Affairs without any guarantee the patients received the treatment or tests they needed, the Washington Examiner has found... What happened to other 1.5 million appointments is something that no one, including top officials at the veterans’ agency, can answer.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Military veterans are dying needlessly because of long waits and delayed care at U.S. veterans hospitals, a CNN investigation has found. What's worse, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is aware of the problems and has done almost nothing to effectively prevent veterans dying from delays in care, according to documents obtained by CNN and interviews with numerous experts. -CNN, November 2013
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Delays in endoscopy screenings for potential gastrointestinal cancer in 76 veterans treated at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals are linked to 23 deaths, most of them three to four years ago, according to the VA. The delays occurred at 27 VA hospitals with deaths at 13 of the facilities. The worst record was at the William Jennings Bryan Dorn veterans hospital in Columbia, S.C., where there were 20 cases of delays and six deaths, according to a VA report.
Whistleblowers within the Veterans’ Administration health system are coming forward with tales of brutal disregard for the health and life of those who served our country. Allegations of extensive wait times for lifesaving care, deaths while waiting, and horrific mismanagement have triggered outrage. Unfortunately, the VA abuses are just the tip of a much larger, more menacing iceberg. The iceberg is covert health care rationing, and it’s inherent in single-payer systems like the VA. -Elizabeth Price Foley
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Narrative, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will let more veterans obtain health care at private hospitals, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki announced Saturday. Shinseki, who faces calls to resign amid reports of lengthy waiting lists and preventable deaths in the VA’s healthcare system, said the agency is "increasing the care we acquire in the community through non-VA care," according to the Associated Press.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Delaying medical care to veterans and manipulating records to hide those delays is "systemic throughout" the Department of Veterans Affairs health system, the VA's Office of Inspector General said in a preliminary report Wednesday... Some 1,138 veterans in Phoenix had been waiting longer than six months just to get an appointment to see their primary doctors, investigators found.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay. ... “For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.” -Jacob Siegel, Daily Beast
Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In particular, the report observes that “OR staff we interviewed indicated that flying and crawling insects have been an ongoing problem in the OR for about 8 years” and that some staff believe the source of the insect problem is that EMS staff are eating food in the OR at night. “The facility does not have a policy addressing prevention or management of insect problems,” states the IG.
"It is heartbreaking that the VA is treating sick and injured veterans in this degrading and negligent manner," declared CVA Executive Director Mark Lucas.
"We should never open the news to find headlines of maggots in the wounds of American heroes."
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
All of the 470 senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs received annual ratings over the last four years indicating that they were “fully successful” in their jobs or even better, according to data released at a congressional hearing on Friday... The data also showed that in 2013, nearly 80 percent of the senior executives were rated either “outstanding” or as having exceeded “fully successful” in their job performance...
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare, Drugs
Vials of morphine were systemically stolen from a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and replaced with water and saline so that dying veterans got the wrong treatments, a longtime VA nurse told The Daily Caller.
“A nurse taking care of hospice patients over the past year had been diverting vials of morphine,” said Valerie Riviello, a 28-year veteran nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York. “Those patients that were dying in hospice were not getting their intended pain medication.”
Government, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs has apologized for what it called an "inadvertent" mistake that underreported the number of deaths linked to delays in cancer treatment at VA medical facilities.
Crime, Government, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Employees at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center were pressured to falsify patient appointment dates and medical records in order to hide serious delays, potentially comprising the health of veterans, according to former employees, internal emails and a complaint filed to the VA’s office of the Inspector General. In some cases, the employees say they were instructed to falsify medical records by writing that patients had declined follow-up treatments when, in reality, they say the veterans had never been contacted. Patient’s lives may be at risk, they fear, because they say some cases involved suspected colon cancer.
The Department of Veterans Affairs admitted Wednesday that its definition of the word "accountability" doesn't mean firing officials involved in the healthcare scandal, and instead said it sees the term as meaning that the VA will be "transparent about what our goals are." -Pete Kasperowicz
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Oops, Greed, Socialism, Healthcare
Veterans at the Shreveport, La., Veterans Affairs hospital have been going without toothbrushes, toothpaste, pajamas, sheets and blankets while department officials spend money on new Canadian-made furniture, televisions to run public service announcements and solar panels, a Watchdog investigation has revealed. Sources inside the hospital told Watchdog.org that patients also have had to contend with substandard care, as many nurses spend less time on work than on cell phones, iPods or accessing personal data on hospital computers.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Ignorance
Ignored claims, manipulated records, cost overruns and even one facility infested with insects and rodents are among the latest issues uncovered by a blistering VA Inspector General’s report. The auditor's probe found that more than 31,000 inquiries placed by veterans to the Philadelphia Regional VA office call center went ignored for more than 312 days, even though they were supposed to be answered in five.
After reports in April 2014 that some vets may have died waiting for appointments with the Phoenix VA facility, the IG found that wait times for thousands had been electronically manipulated while some 1,700 vets were put on a secret list to cover up their long waits. It was later revealed that 18 of those on the secret ledger died before getting their appointments.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Jobs
The nationwide scandal last spring over manipulated wait times at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals led to the ouster of the secretary of veterans affairs and vows from the new leadership that people would be held accountable. Then in February, the new secretary, Robert A. McDonald, asserted in a nationally televised interview that the department had fired 60 people involved in manipulating wait times... Now, new internal documents show that the real number of people removed from their jobs is much smaller still: at most, three.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The number of veterans seeking health care but ending up on waiting lists of one month or more is 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago when a scandal over false records and long wait times wracked the Department of Veterans Affairs, The New York Times reported.
And the government has a particularly good record in medical care. Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment. -Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
For three years, more than $43 million the Department of Veterans Affairs had set aside to inform veterans about their benefits sat in an account, not a penny spent, until an agency financial manager happened to notice.
The VA: Single Payer Nightmare
Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque VA hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Scandal, Socialism, Healthcare
More than 238,000 of the 847,000 veterans in the pending backlog for health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs have already died, according to an internal VA document provided to The Huffington Post... As of April, there were 847,822 veterans listed as pending for enrollment in VA health care. Of those, 238,657 are now deceased, meaning they died after they applied for, but never got, health care.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Jobs
The government's Office of Special Counsel on Thursday told President Obama and top members of Congress that the Department of Veterans Affairs has failed to discipline VA employees for their role in the health care scandal, a conclusion many members of Congress have already reached...
Her letter listed several other examples in which the VA failed to fire officials, and noted that the VA seems to have no problem taking disciplinary action against VA whistleblowers. "The VA has attempted to fire or suspend whistleblowers for minor indiscretions and, often, for activity directly related to the employee's whistleblowing," it said.
Hypocrisy, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Greed, Waste, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Jobs, Constitution
Executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions about whether they abused a program that compensates them for taking jobs in other states, during a hearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee Monday evening... Executives at the VA netted $2 million by abusing the relocation program, the VA's inspector general found in a September report.
The Democratic chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee lambasted the Obama administration over its handling of an incident at a St. Louis VA center in which more than 1,800 veterans were told they may have been exposed to HIV.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Lie
Veterans are waiting at least a year to receive hospice services from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but VA staff members aren't telling patients and their families that they will face such a long delay in receiving care... The lengthy delays at the Washington, D.C., VA facility were uncovered after an unnamed veteran died while waiting for home healthcare services, even after he had been approved by a medical team.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Department of Veterans Affairs officials have racked up more than 10,000 privacy breaches since 2011, making the VA the nation's most prolific violator of laws protecting patients' personal medical information...
For example, one VA employee was found to have improperly accessed a veteran's medical records 61 times without a "business related reason," a HIPAA violation report filed to the Department of Health and Human Services in March 2013 showed. The unnamed employee then posted information from the patient's file on Facebook and "discussed it with her friends," the report said...
In fact, some VA officials have used their access to medical records of employees who are also veterans and VA patients as a way to retaliate against whistleblowers.
What's more, the review found at least 15 instances in which VA employees had posted pictures of patients or details of their medical conditions on social media. That included a 2011 incident in which a patient assistant posted to Facebook a picture of "an ailing veteran's exposed buttocks."
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Tolerance
A pair of Senate Republicans are slamming the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) after a top watchdog found that some calls to its suicide crisis hotline were being sent to voicemail. "The culture of corruption and incompetence at the VA knows no boundaries. To think that we lose 22 veterans to suicide every day in this country — and our VA allows their calls to go to voicemail — is unforgivable," Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare
Supervisors instructed employees to falsify patient wait times at Veterans Affairs' medical facilities in at least seven states, according to a USA TODAY analysis of more than 70 investigation reports released in recent weeks... Employees at 40 VA medical facilities in 19 states and Puerto Rico regularly “zeroed out” veteran wait times, the analysis shows. In some cases, investigators found manipulation had been going on for as long as a decade... More than 480,000 veterans were waiting more than 30 days for an appointment as of March 15, public VA data show.
Its budget and facilities already stretched thin, the Veterans Affairs Department wasted money on two summertime training conference to the vacation hot spot of Orlando, Fla., that cost taxpayers more than $6 million and let federal employees collect freebie gifts like meals, helicopter tours, limo rides, massages and show tickets from contractors, an internal investigation has found. The VA's inspector general concluded top agency officials failed to be good stewards of taxpayer money throwing conferences last year, including spending nearly $50,000 to create a parody video featuring the late Gen. George Patton.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In an exchange about hiring practices during a July 2014 deposition in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against a dentist, a dentistry chief admitted that hiring preference is not given to veterans for well-paying jobs or management and senior roles. Apparently, veterans are intentionally bypassed for such roles because they are perceived as too empathetic to those they serve.
"This is the VA status quo: veterans dying with maggots in their wounds."
Government, Incompetence, Character, AntiAmerican, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
A vermin infestation has overrun the kitchen of a suburban Chicago Veteran Affairs hospital and is reportedly so severe that cockroaches routinely crawl across countertops as cooks prepare meals. The insects have even found their way into patients’ food, employees say... “The workers try to brush the cockroaches off the counters, but the bugs get in the food,” said Germaine Clarno...
Clarno said she witnessed the problem firsthand three years ago when she saw roaches crawling on a dinner plate brought to a patient’s room. She recalled sending the food back before the veteran had a chance to see it and paying for a pizza delivery from an outside restaurant. “It’s been like this for years, ever since anyone can remember,” Clarno said.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Usually, there are 10 operations a week scheduled at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island. But since mid-February, the hospital’s five operating rooms have stood empty and unused, shut down after sand-size black particles began falling from air ducts.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Brilliance, Oops, Crazy, Socialism, Healthcare, Ignorance, Arrogance
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Monday compared the length of time veterans wait to receive health care at the VA to the length of time people wait for rides at Disneyland, and said his agency shouldn't use wait times as a measure of success because Disney doesn't either.
The backlog of VA claims has risen 7 percent in the last year alone. These are claims for health services and related assistance to help these people put their lives back together in the aftermath of their selfless service in our defense. In Boston, veterans wait an average of 333 days, in Chicago they wait 431 days, and the average wait time in Los Angeles is 506 days. -Dave Carter, Ricochet
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
[June 2016]: The number of veterans waiting more than 30 days for care at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities has climbed past half a million. The most recent data on pending appointments released by the VA last week shows that nearly 506,000 veterans currently seeking care at agency medical centers have waited more than a month for appointments, an increase of more than 10,000 in just two weeks and 23,000 in one month.
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, AntiAmerican, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Communism, Murder
[Oct 2016]: The Phoenix Veterans Affairs office is still improperly canceling veterans’ appointments, has built up a new backlog of cases — and at least one veteran is likely dead because of it, the department’s inspector general said in a new report Tuesday.
More than 200 veterans died while waiting for appointments, and investigators said at least one veteran would likely have been saved if the clinic had gone ahead with his consultation. “This patient never received an appointment for a cardiology exam that could have prompted further definitive testing and interventions that could have forestalled his death,” the inspector general said.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Nearly 600 veterans could have been infected with HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C at a Veterans Affairs facility in Tomah, Wis. because a dentist didn’t properly clean his instruments... The doctor has not been identified, complying with federal employee protections. He was one of four dentists employed by the VA, where he worked between October 2015 and October 2016.
As a precautionary measure, the VA is contacting all 592 veterans he treated to test for possible infections. It will provide free medical care to anyone who has an infection.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare
Four staff at the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs resigned after maggots were found in the wound of a Vietnam veteran who died in October. Another VA staff member insisted that the maggots did not cause his death...
Executive Director Myles Deering explained the maggots were discovered while Peterson was alive, but did not cause his death. Rather, the man came into the VA hospital with an infection and died "as a result of the sepsis," complications from that infection.
Enrollment in VA services has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2012. Despite a 76% increase in expenditures ($24 billion) over that period, the program still suffers from chronic budget problems.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
An elderly veteran lay on the floor in pain and resorted to using his bag of medication as a pillow while waiting at a Veterans Affairs medical center in Durham, North Carolina on Friday. Stephen McMenamin, a former U.S. Marine who was seeking care, and his wife posted photos of the scene on Facebook and said a nurse at the VA center yelled at the veteran for laying on the floor, Atlanta's WSB-TV reported Monday night.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Conditions are so dangerous at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., that the agency's chief watchdog issued a rare preliminary report Wednesday to alert patients and other members of the public.
The VA inspector general found that in recent weeks the operating room at the hospital ran out of vascular patches to seal blood vessels and ultrasound probes used to map blood flow. The facility had to borrow bone material for knee replacement surgeries. And at one point, the hospital ran out of tubes needed for kidney dialysis, so staff had to go to a private-sector hospital and ask for some.
The VA Is Single-Payer Health Care
Pete Hegseth, Prager University
Hypocrisy, Crime, Government, Greed, Socialism, Healthcare, Drugs, Theft
Federal authorities have launched dozens of new criminal investigations into possible opioid and other drug theft by employees at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, a sign the problem isn't going away despite new prevention efforts...
Doctors, nurses or pharmacy staff in the VA's network of more than 160 medical centers and 1,000 clinics are suspected of siphoning away controlled substances for their own use or street sale - sometimes to the harm of patients - or drugs simply went missing without explanation.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs failed to report 90% of potentially dangerous medical providers in recent years to a national database designed to prevent them from crossing state lines and endangering patients elsewhere, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The watchdog’s conclusions in the report to be released Monday confirm findings of a recent USA TODAY investigation that found the VA has for years concealed medical mistakes and misconduct by health care workers.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Healthcare
More than 50,000 disabled veterans could be owed as much as $190 million in refunds from the Department of Veterans Affairs for home loan fees they were wrongly charged or no longer owe, an investigation has found. Senior leaders knew about the problem for years but didn’t ensure veterans received what they are due, the investigation by the VA inspector general found.
Veterans pay the fees when they buy homes with the help of VA's Home Loan Guaranty Program, but they are supposed to be exempt if they are disabled. Fees can total up to 3.3% of a home's value. In cases where veterans improperly paid the fees or the VA later determined they were disabled, the agency is supposed to issue refunds.
But the VA didn’t do that in thousands of cases dating back more than a decade because the veterans didn't ask for the refunds.
Liberal, Government, Oops, Healthcare, Murder
Federal officials are investigating as many as 11 deaths at a VA hospital in West Virginia for “potential wrongdoing,” they announced this week in an inquiry that has rocked the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Two of the deaths at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, W.Va., have been ruled homicides, according to media reports. Both are now the subject of lawsuits.
Investigators contacted the family of George Nelson Shaw Sr., an 81-year-old who died at the hospital in April 2018, to exhume his body last winter, according to USA Today. Their investigation found that he had died not of natural causes, but from an insulin injection that he didn’t need.
Felix Kirk McDermott, an 82-year-old Army veteran, died at the hospital a day before Shaw. His body was exhumed. Lawyers his family has hired said that he, too, died after receiving an insulin shot in his abdomen.
The dead rats falling from the kitchen ceiling of one of the nation's busiest veterans hospitals show the facility's pest control efforts are working...
There is only one guaranteed way to get fired from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Falsifying records won’t do it. Prescribing obsolete drugs won’t do it. Cutting all manner of corners on health and safety is, at worst, going to get you a reprimand. No, the only sure-fire way to get canned at the VA is to report any of these matters to authorities who might do something about it. -Jonah Goldberg