Vet Dies Waiting 30 Minutes for Ambulance from Hospital Five Minutes Away
Photo Credit: APWhile it is just a tragic anecdote, the latest story surrounding the chronic and too often fatal inefficiency of Veterans Affairs hospitals is illustrative of a much larger problem.
“A veteran who collapsed in an Albuquerque Veteran Affairs hospital cafeteria, 500 yards from the emergency room, died after waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday. “Officials at the hospital Thursday confirmed it took a half an hour for the ambulance to be dispatched and take the man from one building to the other, which is about a five minute walk.”
VA spokeswoman Sonja Brown defended the VA’s conduct in this case, telling reporters that the staff “followed policy in calling 911 when the man collapsed on Monday.” She added, however, that this policy is now under review.
It is unclear why the ambulance took so long to reach this veteran in need, and blaming the VA system in this instance may be entirely unfair. That said, it is also just another example that serves to reinforce the narrative that the VA system is hopelessly broken.
And the impression that the VA system is broken is anything but unfair.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Whistleblower Fights Back Against VA Hospital Over Secret Waiting Lists
By Michael Volpe.
Despite denials by the Department of Veteran Affairs, a whistleblower is standing by his claim that a Louisiana VA hospital maintained a secret waiting list for patient care.
According to a hospital employee named Shea Wilkes and internal emails leaked to the media, there have been wait times of up to fifteen months for appointments in the mental health department of the Overton-Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Stephanie Alexander, a nurse in the hospital, emailed James Patterson, the department’s chief of staff, and Ruthie McDaniel, the operations manager, to request overtime so that employees could catch up on scheduling the backlog.
“There are multiple lists, excel sheets, papers that contain names of patients that need to be scheduled- just a few at approximately 2400 existing patients- some have not been seen in as long as 12-15 months,” said Alexander in the email.
Wilkes told The Daily Caller that 620 veterans still need appointments.
Read more from this story HERE.
