June
3, 2016
A
PLEA FOR HELP
Our
Long Island Veteran Community needs help, and it needs it quickly. Apparently,
the Department of Veterans Affairs has begun stripping both our older and
younger Veterans of their rightful, earned medical and mental health disability
claims. The VA has also come up with a foolproof way of making it nearly
impossible for any Veteran to receive medical services; either from the VA
Health Administration, or the private sector by manipulating the types of
Discharges.
We
are talking about men and women who raised their right hands and swore to
defend this Country. They did this willingly and with a great sense of pride. The
U.S Government also told them that they would be taken care of after they had
served their Country. The reality is that, at every turn, both young and old
Veterans are being denied benefits, and turned away in alarmingly increasing
numbers from the VA Medical Administration.
Everything
the public has been fed since the fiasco in Phoenix either is an outright lie,
or simply doesn’t work as advertised. It’s all about the money! The “voo-doo”
economics of the 1980’s has morphed into “voo-doo” accounting in the 2000’s and
the Department of Veterans Affairs is playing it to hilt.
I
have been witness to a microcosm of the VA Health Administration’s way of
delivering its product to its intended market for forty-five years. I have been
enrolled at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY over that period. I am
acquainted with a multitude of highly qualified Veteran enrollees who are well
versed in the administrative and building trade disciplines. The recent closing
of our Operating suites is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how
grossly mismanaged this Medical Center has been and is currently. As I have
read and seen the local news accounts on the subject of our Operating Room
closures (plus other Medical Center accounts over the years), I can no longer
stand idly by and simple voice my concerns among my fellow Veterans.
I
am directly referencing recent articles in Newsday and the New York Times;
Martin Evans (Newsday), Valerie Bauman (Newsday), and Kristina Rebelo (New York Times).
These Journalists have recently reported on the Operating Room closures and a
few other situations at the VAMC, Northport. Newsday’s articles started with a
very generous accounting of the situation based on the information being fed
from the Medical Center’s Management. Unfortunately, the information
disseminated is rife with misleading statements and outright lies. The recent
New York Times article was not so complimentary. For the most part, the
journalistic accounts indicate that the Press has been “drinking the Kool-Aide” the VA has been serving. Two of our local
U.S. Congressmen have not taken a sip of that Kool-Aide, and raised the roof in
Washington DC because, they were not informed by the Medical Center, or the VA,
about the situation in Northport until two weeks ago; over four months after
the closures first occurred. The result was astounding. A visit by the VA’s
Under-secretary for Health (May 27, 2016), and suddenly the Medical Center
Director found the $32,000.00 to fix the ventilation problem in the air vents
feeding the Operating Rooms. Why was that money not found in January when the
problem was acknowledged by the Medical Center’s Engineering Department and a
VA air quality sub-contractor?
As I mentioned, this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. A short list of other problem areas include: black mold in all the buildings that were built in 1928 (what came out of the duct system in the operating Rooms contained evidence of black mold); the dis-organization of the entire medical structure; the lack of expenditures on all aspects of the facility’s maintenance; and, the total breakdown of employee morale and accountability. The crumbling of this Medical facility at all levels has been happening at an alarming rate over the last two decades, and the Veterans Administration chooses to turn a blind eye. If confronted, they serve up a new round of Kool-Aide for anyone who challenges their fraud against and disrespect for the area’s Veteran community. How this can happen in a Medical Center that is supposed to serve our Veterans is beyond the pale. The VA is steadfastly opposed to having an independent audit and assessment of its practices and of its facility, so a proper audit will probably never happen
As
Veterans, we fought to defend this Nation, and, now, we are forced to fight another
war at home to secure what was promised us. This overall situation is not right,
on so many levels, and needs to a major remedy immediately. I have some cogent
thoughts on the subject, and am willing to open a dialogue with anyone who
actually cares about how this Nation is treating its Veterans.
Samples of some
suggested reading for 2016 (so far):
Vietnam Veterans
Magazine
The VFW Magazine
_______________________________________
Hutch Dubosque, President
PTSD Veterans Association of
Northport, Inc.
10 Woolsey St., Huntington, NY 11743
hutch.dubosque@live.com /
631-223-6107
