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Report Finds VA Clinics ‘Missed Opportunities’ To Prevent Vietnam Vet’s Suicide

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

A newly released government investigation has found that three Veterans Affairs health clinics “missed opportunities” to prevent a Vietnam veteran’s suicide, with failures ranging from “communication breakdowns” to completely ignoring his “multiple suicide risk factors.”

The unnamed sixty-something patient, who had previously attempted suicide in 1989, shot himself in the head in 2013. He’d been receiving treatment for chronic shoulder, neck and back pain; osteoarthritis, degenerative discs in his lower back, low bone density and a variety of nerve conditions exacerbating pain and weakness in his neck and back, and had had cervical spine surgery in the fall of 2012.

The patient bounced around from clinic to clinic beginning in 2011, when the VA reassigned him from his usual primary care clinic to one nearer his home. A year later he requested another transfer, and another six months after that.

He was also diagnosed with PTSD related to his service in Vietnam, depression, anxiety, “intermittent explosive disorder,” bipolar depression, steroid-induced mood disorder and alcohol abuse.

According to the investigation, “the patient was generally compliant and motivated for MH [mental health] treatment and medication management; he rarely cancelled an appointment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: America Honors Vietnam Vets By Giving Them The Long Awaited Welcome Home They’ve Always Deserved

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When veterans of the Vietnam War returned to the United States, they did not receive the same type of “welcome home” as our veterans who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead of being greeted with open arms, veterans of Vietnam were often met with open hostility instead, sometimes being spat on or accused of being “baby killers and “war criminals.”

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Jake Tapper Hammers White House Chief of Staff: How Many Dead Vets Do You Need?

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By Mike Miller.

CNN’s Jake Tapper went hard at White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough Thursday over the VA scandal that has seen delayed treatment and preventable deaths at VA facilities across the nation.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Getty Senators Lose Patience With ‘Out-of-Touch’ Shinseki

By Newsmax Wires.

New complaints about long wait lists and falsified patient appointment reports have surfaced at Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics across the country, the department’s internal watchdog said Thursday, but he said there’s no proof so far that delays in treatment have caused any patient’s death.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he was “mad as hell” about allegations of severe problems and said he was looking for quick results from a nationwide audit. He rejected calls for him to resign and a senator’s suggestion that he call in the FBI to investigate.

At a sometimes-combative congressional hearing, Richard Griffin, the department’s acting inspector general, said that after an initial review of 17 people who died while awaiting appointments at the Phoenix VA hospital, none of the deaths appeared to have been caused by delays in treatment.

“It’s one thing to be on a waiting list, and it’s another thing to conclude that as a result of being on the waiting list that’s the cause of death, depending on what your illness might have been at the beginning,” Griffin told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

Griffin said his office is working off several lists of patients at the giant Phoenix facility, which treats more than 80,000 veterans a year. He said a widely reported list of 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments “does not represent the total number of veterans that we’re looking at.”

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Photo Credit: APSex Change For Manning As Vets Die From VA Neglect

IBD Editorial.

Abuse: The Pentagon tries to transfer convicted national security leaker Bradley Manning to a civilian prison to treat a gender disorder while veterans suffer and die waiting in vain on phony Veterans Administration lists.

Or should we say Pvt. Chelsea Manning, the name chosen by the convicted leaker of sensitive classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman and the Pentagon is trying to help.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last month gave the Army approval to try to work out a transfer plan with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which, unlike the Defense Department, does provide such treatment to inmates, two Pentagon officials not authorized to speak on the record told the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.

The name change from Bradley to Chelsea was approved last month by a Leavenworth County District Judge, a request the Pentagon did not oppose.

Manning has been diagnosed by military doctors multiple times, including last fall after arriving at the Fort Leavenworth, Kan., prison,with gender dysphoria, the sense of being a woman in a man’s body.

Read more from this story HERE.

More Whistleblowers Detail VA Abuses, Suffer Retaliation

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Jennifer Griffin.

The allegations of wait times, delayed care for veterans and cooked books began in Phoenix, but new revelations by two more Veterans Affairs whistleblowers in two different states suggest the VA problems are endemic.

“What really bothered me was that this delay was a direct result of this extremely low sense of caring for the patient,” said Dr. Jose Mathews, the chief psychiatrist for the VA Medical Center in St. Louis starting in Nov 2012.

Mathews and another whistleblower in Texas detailed their concerns to Fox News.

According to Mathews, he noticed that the doctors he oversaw who were responsible for seeing veterans with post-traumatic stress and other acute mental health issues were working just a few hours a day. They were seeing about half the patients they could, Mathews alleged in a federal whistleblower complaint filed last year. Meanwhile, there were mounting suicides among veterans being treated at his facility — and officially, the St. Louis VA was reporting to its headquarters in Washington that its productivity was among the highest in the nation.

“They all got bonuses — that’s the sad part. Because in reality we were not really doing a good job, but it shows up on paper as if we are,” Mathews told Fox News.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: YouTube Watch Jay Carney Lie About the Department of Veterans Affairs Scandal

By Jim Treacher.

Most transparent administration ever. This is what you voted for, America. And this is what you’re getting. Congratulations.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst VA Calls Top Official’s Planned Retirement A ‘Resignation’ Amid Scandals

By Patrick Howley.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced its top health official’s “resignation” Friday despite the fact that he was already scheduled to retire in 2014 and has a replacement lined up, records reveal.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki accepted Friday the “resignation” of Under Secretary for Health Affairs Robert Petzel amid a growing scandal about VA secret waiting lists and deadly wait times for veterans.

“Today, I accepted the resignation of Dr. Robert Petzel, Under Secretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Shinseki said in a statement. ”As we know from the Veteran community, most Veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA health care, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care.”

But Petzel was already scheduled to retire.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Top VA Healthcare Official Resigns Amid Scandal

By Cathy Burke and Todd Beamon.

The top health official at the beleaguered Veterans Affairs department abruptly quit Friday amid growing outrage over delays in care for ailing veterans at numerous VA facilities.

VA Undersecretary for Health Dr. Robert Petzel was supposed to retire this summer, but VA Secretary Eric Shinseki asked for his resignation early, Military Times reports.

“As we know from the veteran community, most veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA healthcare, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care,” Shinseki said in a statement. “I am committed to strengthening veterans’ trust and confidence in their VA healthcare system.”

VA officials wouldn’t elaborate on any specifics on the forced resignation, according to the Times.

Petzel was on the hot seat Thursday along with Shinseki, testifying before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee about the scandal.

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Eric Holder: No Plans at DOJ to Investigate Secret Waiting Lists and Veteran Deaths at VA Hospitals

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Department of Justice doesn’t have any plans to investigate allegations that veterans placed on secret waiting lists at VA hospitals died while waiting for care.

“Well, obviously these reports if they’re true are unacceptable, and the allegations are being taken very seriously by the administration. But I don’t have any announcements at this time with regard to anything that the Justice Department is doing,” Holder told reporters at a press conference.

“This is something on our radar screen at this point, but there is an investigation being done by the [VA] inspector general, and we’ll see what happens as a result of that inquiry and other information that comes to light in some form or fashion,” Holder added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. David Schweikert: VA Scandal Likely ‘Nationwide’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Veterans Administration controversy that already has been linked to the deaths of some 40 veterans appears to be spilling over to other VA offices nationwide, with members of Congress bracing for repercussions in states around the country as more details emerge regarding extremely long waiting periods for veterans seeking medical care.

What began as a scandal over duplicitous document keeping at the VA office in Phoenix – a scheme apparently intended to conceal the fact that veterans were being left to languish in some cases over a year on waiting lists before getting access to a doctor — has already blown up into an Inspector General probe involving offices in Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, and possibly other states as well.

As many as 40 veterans are said to have died while awaiting medical care.

On Monday, GOP Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona told “America’s Forum” that the revelations so far may be just the tip of the iceberg.

“Be prepared,” Schweikert ominously advised “America’s Forum” hosts John Bachmann and J.D. Hayworth on Monday on Newsmax TV. “There’s going to be more and more of this as the investigation gets deeper and deeper.”

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‘Gaming the System’: Email Reveals How Wyo. VA Workers Were Taught to Manipulate Records

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

An email obtained by Fox News Friday revealed that an employee at a Wyoming VA hospital instructed his workers to manipulate records to make it seem like patients were being seen within the agency’s required 14-day window, which he described as “gaming the system.”

Fox News has learned that the VA was informed of dubious scheduling practices at the Cheyenne VA Medical Center and at a community-based outpatient clinic in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is part of the Wyoming center, through an internal investigation in December 2013. The problems at and the investigation into the Fort Collins clinic were reported earlier this week.

However, the VA took no formal disciplinary action and did not order an independent probe into the matter until Friday, when Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said he learned of the email.

Now Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, is questioning why if the VA learned there were problems in December, the agency is only taking action now. He said Shinseki’s actions are “faux outrage at its finest.”

The June email signed by an employee named David Newman, a Telehealth coordinator at the Cheyenne center, describes to the workers methods they can use to manipulate records in the patient appointment system to comply with a VA policy that requires patients be seen within 14 days of their desired date of appointment.

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Arizona VA Boss Accused of Covering Up Veterans’ Deaths Linked to Previous Scandal

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A Veterans Affairs official accused of keeping double books to hide the fact that dozens of veterans died awaiting care previously ran a Washington state VA facility that allegedly fudged suicide numbers, FoxNews.com has learned.

Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, is accused with other management officials of keeping a fake waiting list that made it appear sick veterans were being treated in a timely manner — while hiding the real list that showed up to 1,600 sick veterans were waiting months to see a physician. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, said investigators have evidence that two sets of records were kept by the facility to conceal the lengthy delays in care.

At least 40 veterans on the secret list allegedly died while waiting for appointments, prompting congressional committees to launch investigations into the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

Helman, who is said to have approved and defended the Phoenix facility’s actions, previously served as director of the Veterans Affairs facility in Spokane, Wash., where the VA’s Office of Medical Investigations found the number of veteran suicides were being miscounted.

Read more from this story HERE.

Veterans Overwhelmingly Disapprove of Obama

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Photo Credit: Rare

Photo Credit: Rare

Two-thirds of military veterans disapprove of President Obama’s leadership of America, according to a new survey by Concerned Veterans for America. That number is notably higher than last month’s 59 percent of Americans who said they were discontent with the Obama administration, in an AP-GfK poll.

Seventy-three percent of veterans agreed with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, that the national debt (now hinged at $17.5 trillion, $7 trillion more than when Obama took office in January 2009) is “the greatest threat to our national security.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Vets to Obama: ‘American Weakness is Dangerous’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Vets for Freedom

Photo Credit: Vets for Freedom

In a letter to the president, the group Vets for Freedom outlines the administration’s dangerous approach to national security.

Mr. President,

For veterans of the Iraq War, watching the black flag of Al Qaeda fly over Fallujah—as the adjacent video outlines—is the ultimate symbol of weak and feckless national security policy. Dismissing this American battlefield is an insult to the sacrifice and honor of our warriors and their families. Unfortunately, it’s just another recent example of your administration’s dangerous approach to national security; let us briefly recount other ways.

Afghanistan War veterans bemoan a failed ‘surge then withdraw’ strategy—costing lives and losing ground. In Syria, we set rhetorical red-lines that a Iranian-backed dictator ignored—and then did nothing. Speaking of Iran, their nuclear ambitions continue unabated—with Israel left standing alone. In Libya we ‘led from behind’—with spiraling violence and a dead US ambassador in Benghazi to show for it…

Read more from this story HERE.