Words Cannot Describe The Incompetence

[DEL]

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/07/23/veteran-gets-locked-inside-florida-va-facility-while-waiting-doctor


Another black eye for the Department of Veterans Affairs after new reports that a Marine veteran was locked inside a VA clinic in Florida. Jeff Duck called 911 Monday after the staff went home, forgetting that he was in a room waiting for the doctor.

When he tried to leave, he triggered an alarm so he called 911. Duck took some video of the strange situation with his cell phone before authorities arrived to let him out.

Duck had been at the clinic for three hours trying to see his doctor for a refill of his pain medication.

Duck later questioned how the VA is going to handle its much broader problems if it can't get things like this in order.

The VA has since apologized to Duck and vowed to change its procedures "to ensure that this does not happen again."

[Barberian]

As a veteran who uses the VA as primary medical and psychiatric care this does not surprise me. It does feed my anger and apathy towards the VA though. I have to stop here before I start to rant about all the broken promises and dismal care we receive when we do seek care.

[looneylane]

That is just sad and unfortunately many veterans in Canada are having just as hard a time. Many with PTSD are brushed off and end up in jail or commit suicide. Good enough to die for their country but not good enough to take care of? So sad.

[ronr]

The whole system is too lax for something like that to occur.  They need to revamp pretty much everything they do it sounds like.

[denny]

I belive it.
My son has a terrible time.
The problem is if he has a serious problem
he has no one to see whom he trust.

[willie]

Because of past experiences with VA, I will never go to a VA clinic again. When I went after being diagnosed with fibro I was told by the doctor that "he didn't know anything about that" but he was going to treat me for something that I never had. Every time I went to the VA I went home pissed off and no better than before I went. It's just not worth the hassle!!!

[augoldminer]

I will never go to a VA clinic again

I found if you relie on the clinics for anything but adjusting meds you will have problems.

I go to the VA hospital for the problems.

I was DXed for fibro by a professor of Rheumatology from UCLA with the help of his staff of interns.

He said my primary care doctor at my clinic would procribe meds for fibro.

I went to the primary care doctor and he said he did not believe in fibro and there was nothing he could do.

First i fired my primary care doctor.(the VA fired him a month later he was a contracted from a HMO)

Then i filed a formal complaint with the VA hospital ombudsman.

That was when they found out NOT to mess with a EMT. 

[looneylane]

Right on augoldminer! Advocating for others medically is easy for me not so much for myself.

[foxgrove]

 Sweet!!  That is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be done!  Bravo!!!

I have to admit that when faced with a similar scenario, I simply walked away.  It upsets me now as I think of all the other people that they will have abused.  Thank you for doing the right thing. 

[pizzaman242]

The old VA was only good for cuts and bruises, because if you ever would require serious care you got bounced from clinic to clinic. Got misdiagnosed, got all the wrong drugs and when they tried everything, then you became the problem of a new clinic. One clinic appointment could last 6 hours, if you had to go to the emergency room, your wait could be all day. I came in once back in the mid 80's with a broken ankle. Stood there as there was no seating available for over 6 hours before I was x-rayed then back to the emergency room for another 2 hours but now in a wheel chair. Still in pain, still waiting, before the Doc finally looked at the x-ray pronounced the ankle was indeed fractured and I was sent to the casting room, where again I sat waiting till a tech noticed me and realized that I was in bad pain. He took me into the casting room and began putting a cast on me and asked a passing doc if he could give something for my pain as I had waited so long. The Doc did and gave it to me himself, So an hour late  limped out n a pair of crutches and a smile on my face. his happened at 730 A.M.  was at the E.R. by 8:00 A.M. I left at 6:30 P.M. Today you will be out in just a few hours.  

Heaven forbid they gave you a prescription because there was no such thing as mailing it, you had to physically go to the pharmacy and sit with a hundred other vets while they filled your prescription. today you see the Doc and you get a new prescription your given the choice of picking it up or them mailing it also refills are mouse click maway with advent of the www.myhealth.va.gov website. You can even PM your Doc and ask questions or get renewals on your prescriptions.

No matter where you were being treated they had a bad attitude problem, which for the past 15 years has been changing. Especially as some of the old school personnel reach their 30 year mark and are retired, this has been letting new blood in and that has prompted a huge change in attitude in some sectors. Personally i can tell you stories that would and should have sent me screaming to a lawyer howling malpractice. Once upon a time you could not have done that, but today they have opened the doors and have had to settle some pretty big old suits.

Once upon a time you could not fire a doctor, you were stuck with him, but today all you need to do is submit a written request and the Doc is gone, now they have reassign you a new doc. This can be problematic if your with a small hospital and the doc you fired was the only one they had. So a sit down with your patient aedvocate and sometimes this will resolve the problem, sometimes you have to start climbing the food chain and this has led me a couple of times in the chief of staffs office. Who in my case is also a neurologist, when he diagnosed me with fibro, well a whole lot of changes happened. This in my case was blind luck that he was a neurologist. most aren't.

Historically by yesterdays standards, the new VA is head and shoulders better than the old VA. IS there room for improvement, yes there is, but in most cases this is a grand example of socialized medicine, with some areas being better than others. But change is in the wind brothers watch and see.

[looneylane]

My dr in Sask refilled my scripts by phone and emailed them to the pharmacy who would even deliver if needed. I only had to go in for changes and for physicals to make sure everything was good. Here I have to go see the doc every time my thyroid meds need to be filled it is kind of weird.

[foxgrove]

Yup.. every doctor has their own set of rules it seems.  I guess how each of them deal with patients to keep them healthy is kinda their own business but there's got to be a whole lot of room in those guidelines or so it seems.  Wild!!