Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Veterans Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 04, 2017 20 Comments
USA Today has done an excellent investigation into the Department of Veteran Affairs. Its latest bombshell shows that the VA has hired doctors they know have malpractice claims and felony convictions. How could this possibly happen? A not so thorough hiring process:
Applications are vetted, education and licenses verified, references checked, and interviews conducted. For clinical hires, a review and approval by a professional standards board also is required. But when applicants disclose prior problems with medical licensing short of revocation, malpractice or criminal histories, VA hospital officials have discretion to weigh the providers’ explanations and approve their hiring anyway.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 13 Comments
The general inspector for the VA found that veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., face "imminent danger" due to the horrific conditions. USA Today reported:
The VA inspector general found that in recent weeks the operating room at the hospital ran out of vascular patches to seal blood vessels and ultrasound probes used to map blood flow.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 01, 2017 8 Comments
Fox News has reported that another doctor has claimed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has retaliated against him after he revealed wrongdoings at the hospital for which he works. Dr. Dale Klein "works" at the Southeast Missouri John J. Pershing VA in Poplar Bluff, MO, but that work consists of staring at a blank wall all day because as he told the inspector general there are "secret wait-lists and wait-time manipulation" at the VA.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 21, 2017 6 Comments
The Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Inspector General has found that officials have not made necessary changes to the suicide hotline for veterans. From The Wall Street Journal:
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ suicide crisis hotline is understaffed, poorly supervised and sometimes leaves veterans on hold so long that they simply hang up, according to an investigation released Monday.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 27, 2017 18 Comments
A veterans group in Massachusetts is criticizing Elizabeth Warren and others for seeming to care more about illegal immigrants than vets. The group, Veterans Assisting Veterans, suggests that Warren's support for illegals is political theater and that vets are suffering as a result of neglect. Dan Atkinson reports at The Boston Herald:
Veterans group blasts Elizabeth Warren A local veterans’ advocacy group is blasting Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other state Democrats for their support of illegal immigrants, calling it “selfish political theater” and demanding they put veterans’ services at the top of their list — or feel the heat.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 13, 2016 7 Comments
The Bay Pines VA Healthcare System in Tampa Bay, FL, left the dead body of a veteran in an unused for shower for nine hours before transporting it to the morgue. The Tampa Bay Times reported:
Once the veteran died, hospice staff members made direct verbal requests to an individual described as the transporter for the body to be moved to the morgue. The transporter told them to follow proper procedures instead by contacting dispatchers. That request was never made, so those responsible for taking away the body never showed up. At first, the body was moved to a hallway in the hospice, then to a shower room, where it stayed, unattended, for more than nine hours.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 01, 2016 25 Comments
The VA in Tomah, Wisconsin, has become entangled in a scandal after a dentist may have infected veterans with hepatitis or HIV:
Nearly 600 veterans who received care at the Tomah VA may have been infected with several types of disease due to violations in infection control procedures. VA administrators made the announcement Tuesday afternoon at a press conference. The Tomah VA says it's in the process of notifying 592 veterans that they may be infected with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, or HIV after they received care from one particular dental provider. Acting Medical Center Director Victoria Brahm said the dentist was using his own equipment, then cleaning it and reusing it, which violates the VA's regulations.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 29, 2016 3 Comments
This all started last week when some students at Hampshire College took down an American flag on campus and burned it to protest the election of Trump. The school then decided that it would no longer fly the American flag at all. The news apparently got around and some veterans decided they didn't like what was happening and organized a sizable protest with a sea of American flags. This is pretty huge. I've been covering campus politics here for four years and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen veterans react to a college news story.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 11, 2016 4 Comments
Every year I share this speech from President Reagan. I struggle to find another one available that honors those who've served our great nation any better. In 1985, President Reagan gave his Veteran's Day Address at Arlington National Cemetery. With the Cold War a fresh threat, Reagan emphasized the importance of peace while insisting, "strength is a declaration that cannot be misunderstood. Strength is a condition that declares actions have consequences. Strength is a prudent warning to the belligerent that aggression need not go unanswered." There is never enough we can do for our veterans who willingly sacrifice so much. Their selflessness was not neglected by Reagan who told this story:
Sometime back I received in the name of our country the bodies of four marines who had died while on active duty. I said then that there is a special sadness that accompanies the death of a serviceman, for we're never quite good enough to them-not really; we can't be, because what they gave us is beyond our powers to repay. And so, when a serviceman dies, it's a tear in the fabric, a break in the whole, and all we can do is remember.
This Veteran's Day, we humbly offer our utmost gratitude to all who have fought to preserve the greatest country man has ever devised. While words hardly seem sufficient, we can offer this: we remember.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2016 6 Comments
Although we haven't heard much about it recently, the VA scandal is very much alive and well. The National Review published an article about the wide-ranging problems with the VA in April of this year.  Here's a quick reminder, neatly encapsulated in NR's review of VA-related stories:
The Veterans Affairs–scandal headlines speak for themselves. The Daily Beast: “Veteran Burned Himself Alive outside VA Clinic”; azfamily.com: “Dead veterans canceling their own appointments?”; New York Times: “Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits,” “More than 125,000 U.S. veterans are being denied crucial mental health services,” and “Rubio, Miller ask committee to back VA accountability bills.” Two years ago this week [April, 2016]— thanks to courageous whistleblowers in Phoenix and a fed-up House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman — the world was finally exposed to rampant VA dysfunction and corruption. Dozens of veterans had died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA — which was, unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg. Across the country, VA officials had manipulated lists to hide real health-care wait times. In total, thousands — and possibly far more — met the same fate: waiting, and dying, at the hands of a calcified and soulless bureaucracy. Investigations were launched, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki eventually resigned.
Rather than attempting to correct a wide array of serious problems--ranging from incompetence to corruption, the VA has instead and in defiance of a 2014 law  "quietly" stopped sending performance data to a national database for consumers.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 29, 2016 11 Comments
As Americans across the nation begin Memorial Day weekend with thoughts and prayers honoring our nation's fallen heroes, vandals defaced veteran memorials in California, Kentucky, and Virginia. ABC News reports:
Memorials to veterans in a Los Angeles neighborhood and a town in Kentucky, as well as a Civil War veterans cemetery in Virginia, were damaged as the nation prepares to mark Memorial Day, officials said. A Vietnam War memorial in the Venice area of Los Angeles has been extensively defaced by graffiti. The vandalism occurred sometime during the past week, KCAL/KCBS-TV (http://cbsloc.al/1RAa3mg) reported. The homespun memorial painted on a block-long wall on Pacific Avenue lists the names of American service members missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. News of the vandalism came as another veterans-related memorial was reported damaged in Henderson, Kentucky. Police say a Memorial Day cross display there that honors the names of 5,000 veterans of conflicts dating back to the Revolutionary War has been damaged by a driver who plowed through the crosses early Saturday.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 23, 2016 13 Comments
Vietnam veteran Roberto Gonzales does not have much time left, but he wanted to spend a few moments with his horses Ringo and Sugar. His wife Rosario described the reunion:
“When the horses came up to him, he actually opened his eyes,” Rosario Gonzales said. “They came up to him and I think they were actually kissing him.”
The final meeting took place on May 21, exactly 46 years after he was injured in Vietnam.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 19, 2016 8 Comments
Veterans at the Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital have demanded action to clean the black mold in their housing complex, which has built up for the past 10 months. From Fox News:
Veterans Affairs documents indicate officials at Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital knew about the black mold infestation in August 2015 but conducted no testing until mid-April 2016 and have yet to clean up the problem – though they are promising to act soon. The mold is contained in two rooms of the Residential Care Facility (RCF), a separate building housing 30 residents for indefinite stays. “I was going by the hallway and the door was open. The back wall was all moldy black,” 81-year-old resident Raymond Shibek told FoxNews.com. “I went and told the director of nursing. She said, ‘How did you see that?’ I said, ‘The door was open.’ She said, ‘You weren’t supposed to see that.’” Shibek said the mold covered an entire wall measuring roughly 10 feet-by-10 feet.
Accessibility by WAH