Veterans Health Administration

There is more than one core incompetency with the Veterans Health Administration. I guess you can have more than one core when you have a multi-cored monstrosity called the Veterans Administration. Regardless, the end result is that thousands of men and women who served and sacrificed for our country are in need of medical care, and they are waiting. In fact they wait far longer for care than your standard Medicare patient. Now the waiting is taking a toll in lives.

I waited for nine months to have my back injury addressed by the VA. It was an injury that I received on active duty, but the system was so backlogged that even an active duty injury was left unintended for that long. But I’m lucky compared to many of my comrades. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released a document, which was made public by CNN, about an investigation that was conducted in just two VA hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina. The investigation dealt with cancer patients in 2010 and 2011.

Apparently nineteen patients died over that two year period due to a delay in receiving a consult for fundamental screenings like colonoscopies. It was a remarkable lack of basic diagnostic care that is available to practically anyone else that isn’t a veteran. The investigation of those two VA hospitals also found at least eighty other patients that have become severely ill with advanced stages of cancer because the disease wasn’t diagnosed or a consult was not given for diagnostic tests. There are wonderful doctors and medical professionals that are part of the VA but a lack of adequate systems and processes that exist in even the most subpar civilian hospitals have infected the healthcare infrastructure of the only option that veterans have.

There are many factors that can be blamed for this. There is a lack of funding on the part of Congress for veterans care. As the budget ax swings on Capitol Hill there seems to be a bipartisan willingness to cut veteran’s funding at the expense of those that have actually earned the right to be cared for. For the funds that have been specifically appropriated to alleviate the problems that were uncovered in the VA investigation, it appears that as much as half of them have been diverted to other areas. It has a number of our Congressional champions for veteran’s health issues wondering what in the world could be more important than saving the life of a person that put their life on the line for us.