Veterans and Post-Care

Submitted by Matt on Tue, 2007-02-27 16:21

Newsweek is covering the problems America is having with caring for its wounded veterans, who are overwhelmingly men.

I find it hard to believe there would be a bureaucracy so slow to move were the ratio of men and women wounded reversed. File this one under "male disposability", and start writing to your Congressoids. Excerpt:

'When he did call the following day, the response from the clinic was even more disheartening: the center was full. Schulze would be No. 26 on the waiting list. He was encouraged to call back periodically over the next two weeks in case there was a cancellation. Marianne was listening in on the conversation from the dining room. She watched Jonathan, slumped on the couch, as he talked to the doctor. "I heard him say the same thing: I'm suicidal, I feel lost, I feel hopelessness," she says. Four days later Schulze got drunk, wrapped an electrical cord around a basement beam in his home and hanged himself. A friend he telephoned while tying the noose called the police, but by the time officers broke down the door, Schulze was dead.'

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"[the V.A. worker] started typing," Marianne says. "She asked, 'Do you feel suicidal?' and Jonathan said, 'Yes, I feel suicidal'." The woman kept typing, seemingly unconcerned. Marianne was livid. "He's an Iraqi veteran!" she snapped. "Listen to him!"

This is very typical of the V.A. (I know because I use it here in California). They don't listen well at all, they just sit there and ask questions and keep typing (without even looking up).
Also the staff (except for most of the doctors) treat the vets in a condescending manner at best, and even with hostility at times (unprovoked). This has been true of all three V.A. centers I have used. The clinics and medical centers have this bogus sytem where they say, "we put our veterans first" (according to the signs all over the walls); but there is no way to complain without going to a "Patient Advocate", some idiot whose job it is to sit there and screen you out (i.e. not address your complaint adequately). Of course the question is, why do they even NEED a "Patient Advocate"?..it's like they're admitting the staff are a bunch of stupid, insensitive, and inefficient jackasses.

-axo

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Submitted by axolotl on Tue, 2007-02-27 23:20