‘Broken’ VA system haunts veterans
By Dan Nakaso, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Like retired
Tsuneyoshi ended up buying his own Kaiser medical insurance last year after he could not get an appointment at the Matsunaga VA for a painful right knee that he attributes to his days running in combat boots.
Tsuneyoshi instead hobbled into
"The blood didn't get to the bone, the bone started dying and it was basically fractured," Tsuneyoshi said.
Asked why he paid out of his own pocket to get his knee diagnosed and then surgically replaced through Kaiser, the 67-year-old Vietnam War veteran said, "If I had to rely on the VA, I would probably be dead."
But in their pleas for truthfulness from Pfeffer and an accurate accounting of the problems plaguing the VA here and across the country,
"Whatever I may feel, it's got to be in the perspective of what's best for the veterans," said U.S. Rep.
VA officials in
But Pfeffer on Monday set a three-month timetable for himself and his staff to reduce the longest wait in the VA system for new patients to see a primary care physician from 145 days to just 30 days.
Pfeffer acknowledged the long wait times while trying to reassure veterans that he's working on solutions.
"I want to reach out especially to our veterans because I want them to have confidence in the care we provide and I want them to know that we're really working diligently to get down patient wait times to make sure every veteran is seen," Pfeffer said, before adding, "The new-patient waitlist is problematic."
In the meantime, in many cases, veterans continue to wait.
"We have been forgotten," said
In 2012, Craft waited six months for his first appointment with a VA primary care physician. He still has not obtained an appointment with a dermatologist.
Like many older veterans, Craft said years of delays and long waits to get medical help at the Matsunaga VA are overshadowed by their concerns for the newest generation of combat veterans waiting to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and a long list of other conditions.
"The military does two things," Craft said, "break things and hurt people. They're not necessarily good at dealing with your concerns when you come home. That scares me for these younger guys. These kids are coming back after three, five, seven tours in
Asked about his own post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War, Craft said, "Till this day, loud noises still scare the hell out of me. Forty-something years out I'm still dealing with this."
Craft attended an emotional veterans talk-story session with Gabbard three weeks ago that was sometimes painful to watch.
"One very irate
Retired
"I had to tell them that I can't sign my name because my tremors are so bad from PTSD that it wouldn't be legible," Dias said.
In an interview with the
"I have memory problems, and a stroke affected parts of my brain," he said. "Today I'm pretty good, but when you jump me back in time, sometimes I stumble."
Dias does remember spending months waiting to see a VA doctor -- or never even getting an appointment -- for a variety of ailments, some of which he links to his military service: tremors, PTSD, heart attack, stroke, hearing loss and severe pain in his left foot.
In civilian life Dias retired as a state aircraft rescue firefighter at
Asked how it felt that no VA doctor even saw him while he suffered from an undiagnosed, life-threatening cancer, Dias said, "What upsets me is that we did our thing as young guys and girls. So it really frustrates me now that we can't get seen by the VA."
Tsuneyoshi, after his successful knee replacement, is now scheduled for the same surgery on his left knee.
Instead of spending money on his Kaiser copayments, fellow veterans tell Tsuneyoshi he should take advantage of his military benefits and have the surgery done through the VA instead.
"They want me to go to Tripler (where the Matsunaga VA is located)," Tsuneyoshi said, "but I've had too many bad experiences there. I'll just pay for it myself."
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