BRAND NEW REPORT: 117 MORE VETERANS DIED ON WAITING LISTS AT LOCAL VA

photo by Wayne Hinshaw

July 3, 2017

The Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General issued a new report last month in which it found over 115 Veterans died at the Los Angeles VA while waiting for care. The VA as a whole was the subject of a national scandal in May 2014, in which over 300,000 Veterans died while waiting for care. The waiting lines were later found to be fraudulent.

This new report focuses on October 2014 through August 2015.

The report notes:

For the period October 1, 2014 through August 9, 2015, we identified 225 deceased patients who had 371 open or pending consults at the time of their deaths or had discontinued consults after their deaths.

Of the 225 patients, we found 117 patients with 158 consults experienced delays in obtaining requested consults. We substantiated that 43 percent (158/371) of consults were not timely because providers and scheduling staff did not consistently follow consult policy or procedures.

We determined that had the facility implemented consistent and timely review of open and pending consults, facility consult data would have reflected a more accurate number of delayed consults that had potential clinical impact.

Veterans’ groups see the report as evidence of continued neglect under the Obama administration after the scandal — and pointed to the need for urgent congressional action. Interesting to note, the Los Angeles Times refused to report this story.

As of January 2017 according to NPR “wait times [at VA hospitals] on average had decreased, but were still unacceptably long and several individual hospitals were showing virtually no progress at all.”

The Southern Nevada VA recently closed the pharmacy and other services at four clinics across the valley after spending over $100 million building those clinics in 2010. Now Veterans must all go to the VA hospital in North Las Vegas driving up to 80 miles round trip. The inefficiencies at the VA are institutionally. One of the problems with the VA is the fact that most of the leadership are not Veterans.

As reported on 360Daily.net on June 24, 2017 

Finally, after it was discovered in May 2014 that some 300,000 Veterans died while waiting in fraudulent lines for healthcare, President Trump signed a new bill creating the VA Office of Accountability protecting whistleblowers and making it easier to fire bad employees.

President Trump said after signing the bill “that we will never, ever tolerate substandard care for our great Veterans. With the creation of this office, we are sending a strong message: Those who fail our Veterans will be held, for the first time, accountable,” Trump said at the VA before signing an executive order to create the office. “And at the same time, we will reward and retain the many VA employees who do a fantastic job, of which we have many.”

Rob Lauer

US Army Veteran

360Daily.net