Maybe bunker buster needed to crack Vets Affairs
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been a ready target, and deservedly so, for failing to provide the care our nation promised those who defended it. After all that national attention from the media and politicians and veterans’ groups, one would think the medical chief and staffers from the regional VA coming to town would be a big deal, right?
A few more than 30 people showed up at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Lindenwood University-Belleville for a “Veterans Town Hall,” supposedly a place to get answers and where the system administrators would come explain their actions and inactions.
The poor turnout might have been because the VA didn’t want too many people to know, as some of the vets speculated. Two reporters sought information about the event after hearing of it from a vet, and finally found the info on the local VA’s Facebook page. This might have just been a check box on some government report so the local VA could say, “Yup. We met with vets.”
The national system is clogged and dysfunctional, with 867,000 vets awaiting enrollment and 307,000 of them dying before they were accepted. Dr. Patricia Ten Haaf, the interim medical director for the regional VA, said 1,000 local employees were added and 1,000 patients joined the nearly 59,000 already in the local system.
Yet she is an example of the local VA’s problems, 45 of which were found by a recent inspector general report. Ten Haaf is here on temporary assignment for a system that has had seven local directors in two years.
The veterans who did attend told familiar stories: No response to their calls, lost paperwork, responses that take a year, missing records that lead to erroneous responses. They get frustrated asking again and again for what was promised to them.
“Why should I go out to find somebody to fight for me to have some type of plausible case for disability when what I have was caused by the military,” said Gary Raymond, 63, a combat medic during the Vietnam War.
He shouldn’t need someone to fight for him, especially when he already fought for us.
This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Maybe bunker buster needed to crack Vets Affairs."