Printer Friendly Page
EDITORIAL: VET CARE "UNACCEPTABLE" --
The Charlotte Observer: "VA leaders
should
drop the attitude and fix the system."
For more about VA scheduling and waiting lists, use the VA Watchdog search
engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/
sessearch.php?q=waiti
ng+lists&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.charlotte
.com/opinion/story/276099.html
Story below:
-------------------------
Vet care `unacceptable'
VA leaders should drop the attitude and fix the
system
The Department of Veterans Affairs is still clueless. A new report says
the VA repeatedly overstates how quickly it cares for veterans and
understates how many are waiting for care. Under pressure to improve
performance and show faster care, some VA hospital workers have
essentially "gamed" the scheduling process to give the appearance of
better care, the report said.
The results, released this week, are shameful but not surprising. Too
many at the VA seem to focus on appearing to help veterans, rather than
making sure veterans really get help.
That attitude starts at the top. That was clear in comments from VA
Secretary James Nicholson, who made a brief visit to Charlotte in June.
Mr. Nicholson spent his short time here not assuring veterans and others
that the VA was aggressively tackling concerns and problems at its
facilities but defending care as "really good." He said complaints are
just a matter of "semantics" in how some data is being conveyed.
Mr. Nicholson was wrong, and many veterans let him and the Bush
administration know it. Amid criticism, he announced in July he would
step down in October.
Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped VA leaders from clinging to the
"semantics" defense. In a four-page response to the recent report, the
VA challenged the investigators' methods and countered that their own
patient surveys show 85 percent of those polled say they get
appointments when needed. "When needed," of course, is not the same as
in a timely fashion or even in the time-frame the VA reports for the
stated record.
In fact, investigators analyzed 700 medical appointments scheduled last
October at 10 VA medical centers and interviewed 113 VA schedulers.
Their conclusion? "The accuracy of ... reported waiting times could not
be relied on and the ... waiting lists were incomplete."
The report calls into question not only the effectiveness, but also the
integrity, of the agency. The chairman of the Senate VA committee, Sen.
Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, called the findings "simply not acceptable."
At least one official gets it right.
-------------------------
Larry Scott --
