Larry Scott (former E-5) served four-plus years in the U.S. Army with overseas tours as a Broadcast Journalist at AFKN HQ, Seoul, Korea and AFN Lajes Field, The Azores, Portugal and a stateside tour as a Broadcast Journalism Instructor at the Defense Information School (DINFOS). Larry was decorated four times including the Joint Service Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. He was awarded DOD's First Place Thomas Jefferson Award for Excellence in Journalism. After the Army, Larry went back to radio news, working in Indianapolis as a News Anchor on WIFE Radio and then in New York City as a News Anchor on WNBC Radio. He receives VA compensation for a service-connected disability and uses the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington VA facilities for healthcare. Today, Larry resides in Southwest Washington and operates the veteran's help website YourVABenefits.org. To contact Larry Scott email larry@yourvabenefits.org.
Author's View
What is happening at the Portland VA hospital is not an aberration. It is happening at all VA hospitals in the country, to a greater or lesser extent. Budgets that have not kept up with the number of veterans seeking and qualified for health care are crippling the VA system from within.
Veterans wait longer and longer for appointments and needed surgeries. The wait at the pharmacy in many facilities is so long you can read an entire Tom Clancy novel. The overworked staff members feel the stress at almost the same level as the veterans.
More veterans are coming home from the Middle East in need of care. The latest wounded toll in Iraq is over 7,100 and more than 17,000 troops have been evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for medical care not directly associated with combat. What will they come home to?
Most VA hospitals handle these problems quietly. They “push out” appointments and surgeries while keeping the staff and funding crunch in mind. In Portland, the problem was not handled quietly. A simple letter brought to light this appalling situation.
Now what do we do? Veterans must get to those who control the purse strings. Our elected representatives hold those strings, and they’ve got them tied in a knot. Let your representatives know that this constant under-funding of the VA is not acceptable. Let them know you vote. A veteran’s call to his United States Senator’s office this week received the following response from a Senate staffer: “Delaying surgeries happens all the time. It’s just the way the VA works.” Really? Well, that doesn’t work for me! Vote your own best interests. Vote for those who support full and mandatory funding for VA health care benefits.
Many veterans seeking medically necessary surgery at the Portland, Oregon VA hospital will have to keep waiting a little longer, as more budgetary problems have come to light that paint a bleak picture for the immediate future of medical care at the Portland VA.
A September 7, 2004 article published here on Military.com detailed surgery cancellations imposed due to lack of funding. After members of Congress learned of the situation the VA in Washington, D.C. released a statement promising “additional resources are available as needed” to remedy the situation. To date, the search for those “resources” has only generated a meeting with a top-level VA administrator who flew into Portland last week, sources report.
At the bottom of the canceled hernia repairs, joint replacements and other necessary medical procedures is lack of funding. Another major part of the problem is that the number of “surgery days” scheduled for orthopedic residents has been cut. Fewer orthopedic surgeries are being performed because the Portland VA doesn’t have the funds or the personnel to keep their operating rooms functioning at a proper level. With orthopedic surgery residents performing fewer surgeries, the validity of their program comes into question. One senior staff member told me he fears a “domino effect,” as fewer surgery days means orthopedic residents may not meet the program requirements, which could lead to the death of the program. “If this happens,” said the staff member, “the Portland VA hospital will turn into just another clinic.” Other VA staffers don’t see this happening in the near future, but concede it is a possibility if proper funding is not forthcoming.
Have more funds been released to the Portland VA? Have more personnel been hired? No one with whom I’ve spoken has seen anything to indicate a positive answer to those questions. So the problems continue. I met with one veteran this week who needs arthroscopic surgery on his knee, and can’t work until this surgery is performed. He met with the orthopedists at the Portland VA in June of this year, and they said they would schedule surgery, but it probably wouldn’t be until January, 2005. To date, this veteran still does not have an appointment for this needed surgery.
The problem of under-funding reaches into every department at the Portland VA. Surgeries in other departments are scheduled further and further into the future as the number of veterans seeking care increases. Staffers say this scheduling practice is considered routine and if veterans question the length of the wait, they are told this is the best that can be done. Staffing cuts combined with retirements and those just “getting out of the system” lead to more work with fewer people. Overtime is not allowed in many departments even though it can be justified by the workload, staff members report. Bills cannot be paid on time with many vendors waiting months to receive payment for products delivered or services rendered.
Then there’s the hiring freeze. Badly needed, essential personnel are not being hired by the Portland VA. At this time there are 61 posted openings for medical positions plus many more for non-medical positions, and many on top of those that are not being posted as “open” because the funds aren’t available. Posted positions include nine nurses and 23 physicians! The Chief of Staff and Chief of Imaging Services positions have been open for five months. The Chief of Orthopedic Surgery position has gone begging for six months. And, after nine months, still no Chief of Hematology/Oncology.
There is no budget for 2005. Portland VA officials have their fingers crossed and hope the funding they will receive is adequate to serve all veterans enrolled at the hospital, but, an infusion of funds adequate to relieve the current staff shortages is not expected until the spring of 2005 because of the delays in the budget process. Until then (if it happens), it appears necessary surgeries will continue to be delayed and the staff will work short-handed. Unconfirmed reports also indicate the Portland VA has borrowed heavily from its unapproved 2005 budget to keep operating during 2004.
In an editorial last week, The Columbian of Vancouver, Washington reviewed this situation and called it “shabby treatment” of veterans. The editorial closed with two very pertinent questions, the first hypothetical and the second straight to the crux of this problem:
“What would happen if a soldier, in defending the world's greatest nation, decided to postpone his or her response to an order when he or she had the ability to act?”
“If this decision could be so quickly reversed, how many other of the American veterans' myriad complaints can and should be so quickly resolved?”
One senior staff member at the Portland VA put it this way: “I have been here well over ten years and I’ve never seen morale so low. No money. No people. Staff is leaving faster than they can be hired. And there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. We want to talk about it. We want to tell anyone who will listen that veterans are not getting the health care they deserve. But, we are afraid of reprisals. Please don’t use my name.”
