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Showing Original Post only (View all)Exclusive: V.A. Scandal Hits New Hospital [View all]
Source: Daily Beast
Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque V.A. hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast.
Add Albuquerque, New Mexico to the growing list of VA hospitals accused of keeping secret waiting lists to hide delays for veterans seeking medical care. And it may already be too late to get to the truth and find out what harm, if any, was done to veterans thereVA officials are already destroying records to cover their tracks, a whistleblower inside the hospital tells The Daily Beast.
Last month, word broke that the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix kept a secret waiting list that allegedly led to dozens of preventable deaths. The VAs inspector general was brought in to investigate the charges and hasnt yet found any deaths in Phoenix linked to wait times, but his investigation is ongoing. Since then five other facilities have come under fire, leading to calls for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to step down. And now theres Albuquerque. The evidence for this new secret list may be hard to track down, however.
The secret wait list for patient appointments is being either moved or was destroyed after what happened in Phoenix, according to a doctor who works at the Albuquerque VA and spoke exclusively with The Daily Beast. Right now, the doctor said, there is an eight-month waiting list for patients to get ultrasounds of their hearts. Some patients have died before they got their studies. It is unknown why they died, some for cardiac reasons some for other reasons.
Theres no proof yet that veterans died while waiting for treatment, like what allegedly happened in Phoenix. But the doctor says its quite possible that some veterans would still be alive if they hadnt been pushed through a record-keeping trap door that buried their requests for medical care.
Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/18/exclusive-v-a-scandal-hits-new-hospital.html