Kinda makes you wonder about the priorities our government puts on the use of our tax dollars, huh?
Four years ago, at the VA emergency room in Houston, a 73 yoar old diabetic with a tested blood sugar of over 500 had to go to the end of the line because he had to go to the bathroom. He died before he got to the front of the line again. Oh, well, not their problem.
Ya think maybe some of the money wasted on corporate welfare in this country could go to better use?
Jane, start with a letter to your Senators and Congressmen. Send copies to the newspapers, and to every VFW Post and American Leigon group you can find, encouraging them to write as well. Complain on a regular basis to the administrator. And carry a bottle of spray cleaner with you, and spray down everything you touch or use. When they complain (and they will) explain that you’re doing the job because nobody else seems to care.
My best wishes for your Dad, and my prayers.
My sister was a VA nurse in Minneapolis for about ten years.
Beautiful new hospital (well, twenty years old now, but for the VA system…) But…
Hiring freeze that has been going on for years. So you’d generally show up for one shift and get mandated for two. Which means - since the shifts were ten hours, you show up for work and work twenty hours before getting off to go back to work in four hours. Since they froze nursing assistants and custodial staff as well, it often means you have a nurse with a master’s degree fetching meds from the pharmacy or running paperwork around or running patients around for lab work. The upshot - most of the nurses my sister worked with worked officially .4 - they’d work nearly full time at .4 after they got done filling in shifts and being mandated, but they’d only be scheduled .4. Which leaves the VA even more short staffed. BTW, in the great world of government benefits - you get benefits working .4. The system is one of those that can be - and is - “worked.”
Supply freeze. My sister brought her own pens to work. The VA didn’t have them.
Red tape nightmare. At some point, the VA decided anything administered to patients needed to have an MD sign off on it. Which means that they nurses spent a lot of time chasing down a doctor to sign off on laxitives.
It was a teaching hospital. Which meant that the nurses and doctors spent some amount of time keeping the interns from killing the patients.
It served a difficult class of people. The VA does not serve every vet - they only serve the vets with no medical insurance. So they get more than their share of the homeless, the mentally ill, the chemically dependant. And of course, the elderly. Often the amount of time and energy spent on social services outstripped the time and energy spent on health care.
Seriously, the VA system is broke and needs to be fixed. Some people would like it to become broke permanently, and privatize the services - so they aren’t interested in fixing it. In the meantime, the people depending on services from it (which right now is a lot of WWII vets) are being screwed by their own government. Our government needs to decide whether to fix it, or shut it down and pay for it through private hospitals - expect this to go on for a long time, cause its going to get worse before they shut them down. And the politics don’t look like they are going to bother to fund them to get better.
Thanks for your kind words and thoughts you guys. It sickens me even more to hear that this is not an isolated case. I have decided that I will write some letters. I cannot abide the conditions of this place.
The good news is that on Saturday, they moved my dad out of what they are now calling the “Hell Room” and into a quiet 4 bed with only one other person it. That has worked miracles for dad’s disposition. Although he wasn’t thrilled when he found out that no one notified him of the CT scan he was scheduled for. He didn’t even know about it until the Dr said, “We should have the CT scan results by now.” And dad said “What CT scan? I didn’t go for a CT scan.” These are not good signs.
He is weak and all he wants to talk about it food. He can’t wait to eat real food. Yesterday he was cutting recipes out of magazines - pizza meatloaf, I can’t wait!! 
We remain optimistic and will remain diligent about monitoring his caregivers.
Thanks again guys. I’ll keep you posted.
Dad comes home today. Yipee!!!
Dad has been on solid foods and meds to keep his lipase levels stable for the past four or five days and everything seems to be moving just fine. So, sometime this afternoon or early evening, pops comes home and he is free to cook to his hearts content.
Thursday, chicken soup, Friday, who knows what - maybe pizza meatloaf, which while it sounds nauseating, I’ll eat it and enjoy, because, if that’s what pops wants, that what pops gets.
I will ressurect this thread one more time in about a week or so to post my letter to my congressmen, just to get some feedback before I send it, if you don’t mind.
Anyways, thanks again and WELCOME HOME POPS!!!
I’m so glad he’s home. I’ve heard that there are great pizza places in Chicago, so for crying out loud, get him a pizza! Eat in, have it delivered, whatever.
Actually, pizza meatloaf doesn’t sound so bad…I put onions and green peppers in my meatloaf, and I guess that spaghetti sauce with Italian herbs could cover it?