Segel: The VA - From Excellent Treatment To A Bumbling Bureaucratic Mess

[Terri]

By Thomas D. Segel
November 2, 2009

Ask veterans a question about the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs and prepare yourself to be overwhelmed with replies both good and bad, but most being just plain ugly. That was the result experienced when we asked the military community about experiences with that governmental agency. The woeful responses of many veterans were difficult to read.

The anger expressed by some veterans is understandable. Plain bitterness and disgust were also noted in the many email responses. When everything was sorted out rating the VA as a bumbling bureaucratic agency lost in a governmental maze seemed to be to general view. However, sprinkled in among those who ranted and raged, were other voices that offered nothing but praise for how they had been treated.

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[Centurion LIV]

I think that a lot of it depends on where you are.

There was a VA hospital I went to in Texas years ago. Even though I had appointments, they re-scheduled me without notice and I often had to make 3 or 4 trips of 90 miles one way. Most of the staff was foreign born. They herded us around like cattle. It was perfectly normal to spend the whole day there for a simple checkup because they scheduled one big appointment and put 40 or so names on it. We all had the same appointment and it was awful.

Where I am now, we have a fine VA clinic. Appointments are appointments, not a massive cattle car processing line.

There is a larger VA clinic near Medford and from what I see, they really do try to provide good service but they still do the cattle car thing. I spent the entire day in there once between labs, checkup and then a special diabetics workshop.

The VA has an important purpose. The important thing is to remember why it is there. There are a lot of veterans who would be living under a bridge with no medical care at all if not for the VA.

"Keep' em smiling in beds of white!"

[kenmarx]

I can only cite my one experience with the VA. When I retired from the Air Force in 1986, they determined that I had a service connected disability. They sent me to the VA for evaluation.

First, I noticed that the floor was decorated with colored lines that are apparently used to guide patients to various clinics. I wondered if they thought veterans were stupid, or something.

The first "doctor" I saw was wearing a tasteless brown sport coat that didn't match the rest of his outfit. He didn't really fit my conception of how a professional should be groomed. It just happens that I keep my fingernails trimmed close. He took one look at my hands and his first question was, "Do you bite your nails?" Maybe that was his way of determining something or other, but I found it offensive. I received a disablility rating, but have never stepped into a VA facility since. First impressionions have meaning.

[Terri]

The VA - More Good Care And Bumbling Bureaucracy

By Thomas D. Segel
November 3, 2009
The ink had not even dried on our latest commentary about VA care and operations before another flood of email from across the country hit our computer. Veterans had a lot more to say.

Marc Martinez a Navy veteran from McAllen, TX is still expressing his anger over the slow movement of the VA in the Rio Grande Valley. "We have more than 100,000 veterans here in deep South Texas", he writes. "They have been fighting for more than 30 years to have a VA hospital built in this area. During all of that time they have been forced to spend countless hours on the highway driving more than 270 miles one way to a VA hospital in San Antonio. Even by Texas standards that is a long trip. It usually adds up to about 5 hours of fast driving, followed by an overnight hotel stay, followed by a day long wait at the hospital to receive service and than a repeat of that long 270 mile trek back home. For many of us this is a trip that has been required weekly or monthly for years."

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[waaaja]

I understand the VA is to serve veterans,what I don't understand is why they have to do it separately from the general population. With VA hospitals so inconveniently located for so many they are supposed to serve why can't veterans just get their care from local hospitals and doctors and the government pick up the cost. It seems it would be more efficient to set up a plan similar to medicare than to set up separate hospitals and clinics. The veterans could get care close to their own homes without be unnecessarily inconvenienced. You could still have facilities that specialize in treating injured active duty serviceman. The whole system seems outdated and poorly run. This is no way to treat the men and women who put their lives on the line for us.

[Charie]

Welcome to waaaja. Good to have you posting here.

Don't expect to have what you suggested ever done, though. It's too simple and would shrink the bureaucracy at the VA, a fate to be avoided at all costs.

There is corruption in the VA just as there is in any government bureaucracy. The vets who were scamming and those who demand treatment even though they were short termers and never had a war injury can use up a lot of resources and funding. I'm sure there are some kickbacks and sticky fingers in the administration of it, too.

Locally, we just had a big scandal in a veterans retirement home where the administrator managed to steal thousands of dollars before they caught him.

It used to be that when your country called you to fight it's enemies you did it and no doubt groused about it, but didn't expect to be taken care of for the rest of your life. If you weren't wounded you just came home and picked up your life where you left off.

I'm sorry for those who deserve all the help the country can give and get tangled up in government regulations.

Those who are wounded or incur other injuries or diseases in the service of their country should get first class medical care for as long as it takes to get them back on their feet and in a good situation.