Va Shows Its True Colors -again

[reddevil1111]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/22/health/homeless-veterans/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

another story about how vets come last in the US VA system. We are just thrown away and dismissed.

 

[Jimmy1]

Tell me about it. Over here they used to have a VA White card for specific injuries and then Gold card for all injuries, then Gold TPI if you were screwed and could not work. They are now trying to change it because so many people are coming home from the middle east broken, both mentally and physically. To be classed as TPI you have to either be missing a limb or have PTSD. Now they are trying to evade that by blaming it on childhood problems and also TBI.
Yes I get worked up too. Put them in our place for a month or on a bad day and see if they can put a price on that.
We are like cattle.

 

[Sarg]

Been following this for years, now. It's blatant, in your face refusal by the VA to do what they are supposed to do, take care of the people who preserve our freedom and our land. Our Fed. courts just recently found the VA guilty of depriving the rights of someone trying to bring this issue to the forefront, a felony. It was made very clear that the VA was violating the rights of Veterans and no law enforcement is stepping forward to arrest those responsible.

It's land that belongs to Veterans and it's being stolen by the VA. It is a crystal clear example of how corrupt the VA and our government is.

As a side note, disabled Veterans picket the site every Sunday and they are constantly harassed by VA police while doing so, including knocking a Veteran out of his wheelchair when he was picketing.

So much for, "Welcome home, Hero!".

Sarg

 

[Boomer]

Pretty new here, but I agree. I had a 0900 appt. the other day didn't get seen till 1230 (after my counselor went to lunch) I always come back worse than I was. Not to mention the Zipper Head for a doc, didn't speak 2 words of english. The Buffalo VA was ranked in the top 5 facilities last year.... I hate to see the other ones. AIRBORNE!

 

[reddevil1111]

I was discharged while still being treated medically for combat related injuries. From a VA hospital I woke up in. I had a leg/hip wound that was septic and deep. I had drains and a pump for the leg. Pump broke. no replacement. Meds? one dose of pain meds a day dut to budget cutbacks. Sometimes I would get the days pain meds at 1150pm and the next days at 1210am.
Food was on and off. 12 hrs to 16 hrs with no checkups or food or any help at all.
I was at Hines VA in Chicago. one of the biggest hospitals they have.
Do we need to even bother talking about the mold, rats,roaches, broken toilets (shattered, clogged, backed up for weeks)
I do not,will not EVER go into a VA faculity EVER again. I feel lucky to have survived the one visit.

 

[Wagon]

F'ing VA. Unfortunately I believe the VA falls under military budgeting..... ----(please correct me if I am wrong) The first thing Pres. Bush did after Afghanistan started up was to cut VA benefits. Now it's holy shit we have a debt problem, we may.... "may" need to cut some military spending. Geuss what takes the hit.. VA benefits again. Not the pointless and already outdated F-35 multi billion dollar fighter.... VA Benefits. Thank you Veterans.

Ahh well. Democracy was getting boring anyway.

I am lucky to have had only brief visits to their facilities.

When I was in University I took a Public Administration and Policy class. We tackled social issues and did some investigative reporting on certain things in our area. Galveston, Texas. One group tackled the homeless. The statistics in the early 90's were shocking to say the least. Out of a small city of 60000 we had 3000 homeless people. In the entire US, 75% of homeless people were veterans....Mostly Vietnam. Get ready for more of the same folks.

Wagon

 

[deborah l. boylan]

I'm just getting started with the VA process. I've heard nightmare stories about the VA. Not looking forward to it. Of course, anytime you have the federal government involved there is going to be corruption, fraud, waste, abuse, and downright incompetence. Great! Just a little something to look forward to in retirement. Oh wait, I already work in an environment that is full of corruption, fraud, waste, abuse and incompetence. I probably won't notice the difference!

 

[Sarg]

Oh, you had to bring up the VA. But I won't go off on tangents, altho' I could for possibly......months here.

You're right Wagon, our VA falls under the Defense budget. And the Defense Dept. is non too happy about it either. Every time they trot out this new, leading edge jet fighter, Congress looks at the ever-exploding VA budget and nixes the fighter. The good news is the VA is getting billions in funding. The bad news is the vast majority goes to extremely highly paid VA managers and administrators. Then comes the VA union employees that number in the hundreds of thousands and who's pay averages $140K/YR PLUS their gold plated retirement PLUS their gold plated healthcare.

When everything trickles down to what they refer to themselves, the 'worker bees" and O and M budgets it winds up being about a 1% increase/yr. Now that was for the sceanario that there were X number of Viet Vets to treat and they just plopped a little on the top for our new Vets.

Canned disaster. What they perfected in bringing our troops fast enough to M.A.S.H. units to prevent death, they have elevated to a fine art in today's wars. The front med units stabilize the guys to the point they can withstand the trip to Landstudl and the magic happens.

More wounded in a much more sophisticated health or recuperation mode dumped upon people who quit caring about what they were doing decades ago, I shudder to think about it. That's why private folks like the Wounded Warrior Project stepped in.

Hints from 41 yrs of experience:

Expect to be pissed off. It's almost guaranteed. Their snotty, disrepectful and treat you like a prison inmate.
DO NOT, get snotty and disrespectful to them. Be polite, voice volume way down or they'll claim that you are shouting at them. Bring lotz of reading material, you'll be there a while.

Parking your car. Expect to circle the lot endlessly looking for someone to leave, or you could just park in the lot a mile away and walk. VA employees get 1st choice on parking and naturally take the closest one's.

If it is at all possible, do not allow them to cut on you. If you need to have an operation, try your very best to have an outside Dr. do it. I made the mistake and have regretted it for decades now.

Any time they give you a prescription, before you take it come home and do a check on Drugs.com to make sure it doesn't counterindicate with something else you take.

These are but a few of my experiences with them, if you have more questions, let me know.

Sarg

 

[reddevil1111]

Also, be aware that there is no free lunch. They dont care about you and anything that they can do to get rid of you they will. There is a process to ridicule and pester you...they will send you all over that hospital to different dept's with nothing more that the goal of wasting your time. It is a test of wills. I personally broke. I mentally and medically cant trust them and all the time the things I went through are reinforced by others haveing similiar problems. Sarg has said a lot of good advice. Also, talk to the older vets that are there. 99% BS in the conversations but you can pick thier mind on how things work. They know the in-out of the VA.

 

[Jimmy1]

This is a hard one guys as VA's all around the globe are different, but they all have a couple of things in common. First they are all medical insurance companies, so its up to you to prove that the military caused your injury. That alone is hard sometimes as during training you are told that you are a malingerer if you go to the aid post for just a twisted ankle, bruised knee, sore shoulder etc, etc. So later on in life you have to prove it.
And with PTSD its the same. We know what you are experiencing, they know you were there, they will just do everything they can to prove its not PTSD. Why?? Well over here, once you have Chronic PTSD and Depression accepted by them, its like losing your leg. A whole new door opens.

This does not help you guys struggling though. But don't give up. Like Red says, find a veterans association, they will point you to someone who can help. When I first lodged my paperwork I thought I did not need someone helping and they denied my PTSD. I had to go through the appeal process.

The next problem we have is the different 'ACTS' passed by parliament, or congress. Over here, it depends on when you served and where as to what ACT you fit under. These ACTS can also determine what treatment, compensation, and benefits you can get. All my injuries and PTSD fall under two different acts over here, but get this. After being officially diagnosed with PTSD and having it accepted by the VA, I applied to have it accepted under a different ACT.

Anyway, they denied it by saying that the reports were many years after the fact (Derr, that is why its called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and they questioned the findings of a well known psych in the field and also the sworn affidavit of my Sergeant Major. I got a little hot under the collar. So sometimes its just the dweeb who gets your paperwork.

So go to a veterans centre, they will point you in the right direction. Waffling!!!!!!

 

[Shadowtao]

Here too for many things.
In the States PTSD is pretty much treated as long as the VA medical folks say you have it. BUT that does not mean you will be compensated for it. Compensation requires that a VA shrink says you have PTSD, that it was caused by a combat and the VA then verifies you were in combat.
General medical does comes under which war or what period you served. Some get treated iof they served a day, others must have served two years or been medically discharged. I am being over simple as the actual rules are legion. But here in the USA different acts of Congress mean different benefits.
And yep, sometimes its just the dweeb who gets you paperwork.