V.A. Official Acknowledges Link Between Delays and Patient Deaths
Source: NYT
WASHINGTON In a contentious hearing before Congress, a senior official from the Department of Veterans Affairs watchdog agency acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that delays in care had contributed to the deaths of patients at the departments medical center in Phoenix.
The disclosure by an official from the departments inspector generals office, coming after more than two hours of tough, sometimes confrontational exchanges with members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, was a significant development in what has become a heated dispute over the quality of care at the Phoenix hospital, where revelations of secret waiting lists and other schemes to disguise long delays in care turned into a national scandal.
Republicans characterized the acknowledgment as an about-face, and expressed frustration and some anger that a report on the Phoenix hospital issued by the inspector general last month contained language widely viewed as playing down concerns about a link between the medical-care delays and veterans deaths.
As the waiting-list scandal began to break in Phoenix this spring and soon became a national controversy that led to the ouster of the departments secretary, Eric Shinseki, and the suspension of the hospitals director claims were made by whistle-blowers and on Capitol Hill that the deaths of as many as 40 veterans could be attributed to delays in care.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/us/va-officials-acknowledge-link-between-delays-and-patient-deaths.html
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)Thanks for the thread, alp.
librechik
(30,674 posts)and their tightfisted anti-social (ism) paranoia--they will kill us all.
tazkcmo
(7,300 posts)For my appointment on Oct 8th at Amarillo VA when I received a letter informing my appointment has been cancelled. The cancellation letter informed me another letter will be sent informing me of the new appointment date. Worsening scoliosis, possible bulging disc, arthritis of some kind in all my joints, a burning like sun burn ranging from moderate to periods of very painful ALL over my body. I don't know what's really wrong with me because I can't get in to see a doctor. I love the folks that work at the VA but hate the $@%@!! that run it.