THE FOX IS GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE , AGAIN!

 

Department of Veterans Affairs is in chaos!

This is a reprint from three years ago. It is still appropriate today. 

That’s correct:

nobody in Washington DC 

gives a crap about Veterans!

A FEW LINES FROM THE HEADLINES:

Referring back to “VCR” Syndrome among Veterans, I offer a few recent headlines from articles I receive via emails: subscribed and unsolicited. I will not beat this topic to death. I simply feel strongly it needs to be said, again

Please look at #7....sound familiar?

      Most Veterans Say Iraq, Afghanistan Wars

     Weren't Worth It: Pew Report [1]

OUR COMMENT: Didn’t the Government say this was nothing like Vietnam?

Medal of Honor Recipient Dakota Meyer

Launches GoFundMe for PTSD Treatment [1]

OUR COMMENT: I guess his VAMC ran out of Mental Health budget money!

Federal Cannabis Policies Are Hurting

Veterans. Here's How to Fix Them [1]

OUR COMMENT: Fix whom the Feds, the policies, or the Veterans?

2019-06-11 O&I Subcommittee

Oversight Hearing : Examining VA’s Police Force[1]

OUR COMMENT: VA’s Police Force - so open and transparent...NOT

       Homeless women veterans are afraid to be separated from their children if they seek help, advocates say[1]

COMMENT: I guess they would be safe down at the border...right?

     Homicide detective investigates veteran death after va police altercation[1]

OUR COMMENT: Oh, they wouldn’t! They love their Vets, too.

     Malaria drug causes brain damage that mimics PTSD: case study[1]

OUR COMMENT: Please do sign me up for that little pill. Sound a little familiar?

Hydroxychloroquine

[1] All headlines are from Military.com - Newsletter.

How do headlines like those above lead to:

VA STUDY FINDS 93% OF VETERANS ARE COMPLETELY SATISFIED WITH THE CARE THEY RECEIVE FROM VA

What The Fuck, Over!

Take a look at this short video on of testimony given before the House Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs (Mark Takano, Chairman - D., CA)

link =https://twitter.com/i/status/1149061835485777928

Service Chiefs: Troops Will Head for Exits if Budget Cuts Persist

This addresses the front-end of the Military. The back-end is addressed by the way this Nation treats its Military Veterans; which is a National disgrace!

....................................................................................................................................................................................

Military.com | Sep 15, 2016 | by Hope Hodge Seck

Caps on defense spending limit training, force service members to use old gear and may lead to an exodus of troops from the armed services, the four service chiefs told lawmakers Thursday.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps warned that a return of sequestration budget caps would promote fiscal uncertainty and take a deep toll on rank-and-file morale.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 put a temporary stay on a half-trillion dollar tranche of defense budget cuts, but the armed services must plan around the reductions for five more years if Congress does not again act to avert them.

For the Navy and Marine Corps, limited funding and delayed aircraft modernization have resulted in limited pilot flight hours. This summer, the Marine Corps resorted to an unusual measure, pulling 30 F/A-18C Hornets from the "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona and putting them back into service in an effort to maintain readiness ahead of F-35B Joint Strike Fighters entering the fleet in numbers.

"When our pilots are flying less hours a month than Russian and Chinese pilots are, we're going to have a problem," Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona who heads the defense committee, told the generals.

The chief of naval operations said limited flight hours also take a toll on morale.

"Our pilots join the Navy to fly naval aircraft; that's what they want to do," Adm. John Richardson said. "Money can help up to a point … but at the heart of the matter, there is a highly dedicated team that wants to defend the nation in high-performance aircraft, and that's what they want to do: They want to fly."

Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, said aircraft maintainers and aircrew were also at risk of being lost to commercial aviation companies and contractors as the service is forced to cannibalize parts and require staff to maintain productivity with fewer resources.

"We're making it now on the backs of those sergeants and staff sergeants out there that have to do work twice to get the part we want and put it on another [aircraft]," he said. "So I'm as concerned about maintainers sticking around."

Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said readiness and morale are inextricably linked for the service, and airmen who are not being used to their full potential will look for other opportunities.

"Pilots who don't fly, maintainers who don't maintain, controllers who don't control, will walk," he said. "And there's not enough money in the treasury to keep them in if we don't give them enough resources to keep investing."

Without reliable money to modernize, Goldfein said the service has had to lean heavily on Service Life Extension Programs to make its aging aircraft last longer -- an expensive and risky endeavor, he said.

"There's a reason [SLEP is] a four-letter word," he said. "The reality is, we only fix what we can accurately predict. Then we put the aircraft into depot maintenance, we pull the skin off, and what we find are things breaking that we never predicted."

With the service's F-15C Eagle, a steering problem fix turned out to require a part that hadn't been manufactured in five years. The Air Force was forced to commission new parts at significant cost.

The chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Mark Milley, said sequestration cuts would undercut plans to ramp up training for high-end threats, which had fallen off during the last 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"An armor officer today -- a tank officer up through rank of major -- has very little experience in terms of maneuvering tanks against an opponent who has armor," he said. "We have to rebuild that. That's going to take considerable time and effort on our part. Sequestration will take the rug out from underneath us."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said he found the lack of action in the face of troubling defense budget concerns "repugnant." With the return of sequestration, he confirmed with the service chiefs, some 30 ships would not be added to the Navy's fleet and the Army would lose between 60,000 and 100,000 troops. Neller confirmed that the Marine Corps, too, stood to lose personnel.

"Would you agree with me, general, that Congress is going to shoot down more planes than any enemy we could think of in the near term?" Graham demanded.

"Potentially," Goldfein responded.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck

Service Chiefs: Troops Will Head for Exits if Budget Cuts Persist

Commission Defends Integrating VA Care and Outside Doc

PREDICTION: By the second quarter of 2017, The VA Health Administration (VHA) will be well on its way toward  "privatization". The Commission On Care was chartered by Congress. Most of our elected Officials and many prominent private citizens are fully behind this movement. They have very quietly made extraordinary progress toward their goal of enriching the private health systems with the money they will receive from the Federal Government for enrolling Veterans. I had to read this twice to make sure I wasn't missing something extremely important to Veterans; Mental Health Care. The Commission On Care's report to Congress does not address this at all. There is a way to remedy the problems inside the Department of Veterans Affairs. It seems that no one involved in this has any desire to do the right thing for Veterans.It's going to be a dark day for our Nation's Veteran population when this report morphs into Law and practice.

click on link: THE MILITARY.COM GUIDE TO MILITARY AND VETERANS BENEFITS

 POSTED BY: TOM PHILPOTT, SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

 Military Update: Commission on Care leaders defended their tough diagnosis and 18-point treatment plan for what ails the VA healthcare system, including their controversial push to let veterans begin to choose their own primary care doctors from new, integrated networks of VA and private-sector physicians.

Answering critics who say they went too far or not far enough in proposing to transform the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) over the next 20 years, Commission Chair Nancy Schlichting, chief executive officer of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and vice chair Dr. Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, CEO of worldwide Cleveland Clinic hospitals, warned the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday that VHA is rife with weaknesses.

The many “glaring problems,” said Schlichting, include under staffing, aging facilities, obsolete information technology, flawed operating processes, supply chain weaknesses and health outcomes that vary across VHA, all of which “threaten the long-term viability of the system.” Yet VHA’s ability to transform is most hampered by “lack of leadership continuity and strategic focus,” and “a culture of fear and risk aversion,” she said.

By having only two of 15 commissioners from the congressionally chartered panel testify allowed committee members to focus on what a majority of industry health experts recommend, rather than complaints of veterans service groups defending the status quo or the unpopular notion of dismantling the VHA system as backed by the billionaire Koch brothers.

But Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), the committee chairman who will retire in January, added his own list of VHA weaknesses that have been the focus of House committee hearings and press releases: “persistent access failures, noncompliance with federal prompt pay laws, lack of accountability, a bloated and self-preserving bureaucracy, and billions of taxpayer dollars lost to financial mismanagement of construction projects, IT programs, bonuses for poor performing employees.” The list, Miller said, is “legion and growing.”

But Miller on one issue joined with the Obama administration and most veteran service organizations. He opposes the commission’s call to establish a new layer of VHA oversight — a board of directors comprised of health industry experts who would have authority to direct VHA transformation, set long-term health care strategy and ensure both are carried out by a VA under secretary of health who would be appointed for five-year fixed terms.

“Outsourcing the crucial role of a cabinet secretary to an independent board…neither elected nor accountable to the American people would be irresponsible and inappropriate, not to mention unconstitutional,” Miller said.

Miller and Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, agreed with many commission recommendations and noted that VA Secretary Robert McDonald said many already were being implemented as part of his ambitious MyVA reforms announced last year.

But Takano, on behalf veterans groups, criticized the commission’s call to integrate VA medical staff with networks of screened private care physicians, to allow enrolled veterans to choose their own primary care doctors, and to allow their providers in turn to manage all care including referrals to specialists on VA staffs or approved outside networks.

The worry, Takano said, is that too many veterans will choose private sector care, driving up VA costs and jeopardizing “the viability of unique VA health services” to treat spinal cord injuries, polytrauma cases, amputee care, blindness or traumatic brain injuries. Why didn’t the commission recommend that its expanded “choice” model be tested initially to determine the impact on VA budgets and programs, he asked.

Commissioners did discuss a phased approach to include testing, Schlichting said, and that is reasonable considering the complexity of implementing these reforms.

“It’s important to balance this question of choice — making sure access is really available within every market across the country — with the issue of how we’re trying to also control those networks to better serve veterans,” the commission chair said. “Finding that balance is really important.”

Schlichting recalled heated commission debates over how and why to expand patient choice using the private sector. In the end a consensus of commissioners believe they have hit a “sweet spot” for expanding choice by preserving VA system strengths while also allowing access to outside providers carefully screened to provide quality and veteran-centric care.

The commission would allow VA-enrolled veterans to pick a private care provider even when a doctor was available inside VA. What data did the commission rely on to decide that would be okay, Takano wanted to know.

“If you begin to the think of the VHA care system in the way we did,” Schlichting said, then “it’s not a question of VA versus provider-in-the-community. It’s one system that should be operating in a much more integrated way. And every provider within that VHA care system then would be able to provide access for veterans. It’s a different mindset than today.”

She bristled at a charge from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) that the commission missed a chance to truly transform veterans’ health care by rejecting the vision of two dissenting commissioners who wanted VA care more fully privatized and the VHA bureaucracy largely dismantled.

Neither of those commissioners, Schlichting said, “has ever implemented a major change in a health system as Dr. Cosgrove and I have. I think we recognize the transformative aspects of what we’re proposing.”

If Congress embraces recommendations from a majority of commissioners, she said, it would begin a “process that will take many, many years to complete, recognizing the complexities of both facilities and staffing issues and leadership [and] IT interoperability…And to say that what we’re proposing is not transformative I think is just untrue.”

Cosgrove, a former Air Force surgeon, emphasized that a first step toward transforming VA health care must be replacing a woefully outdated electronic health records system with an off-the-shelf commercial system that allow providers and patients to schedule their own appointments.

He and Schlichting also stressed that VHA can’t be transformed without an undersecretary for health who sticks around, and the backing of some sort of oversight team of experts to demand adherence to sustained progress. Congressional oversight, they argued, just isn’t enough.

OUTSOURCING THE VETERANS CRISIS HOTLINE?

        ©2016 Carroll Broadcasting CompanyTop of Form

Bottom of Form

Congressman Seeks Answers On Allegations Of Outsourcing For Veterans Crisis Line

September 4, 2016  

Iowa: Audubon County, Calhoun County, Carroll County, Crawford County, Greene County, Guthrie County, News, Sac County

Iowa Congressman David Young is seeking answers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary, Robert McDonald, to respond to claims that some VA contractors are using workers from outside of the country to staff the Veterans Crisis Line. Young says he has grave concerns over the allegations, “and how potential outsourcing and contracting Veterans Crisis Line operations may impact our vulnerable veterans.” Young says it is the VA’s duty to ensure their choice have a positive impact on our veterans, especially when it comes to mental health assistance.

• ARE YOU A VETERAN IN CRISIS?
• IF SO, PRESS “1” FOR A FOREIGNER TO HELP YOU!
• ANOTHER “WTF” FROM OUR BOYS AND GIRLS IN WASHINGTON DC...

YOU JUST KNOW THERE’ MORE TO THIS STORY!

http://www.1380kcim.com/news/2016/congressman-seeks-answers-on-allegations-of-outsourcing-for-veterans-crisis-line/

Navigate the VA System - A No-Win Situation

Please click on this link and read......

Vietnam Veterans Struggle With The VA System
One of the best things about this man's story is that he didn't give up and commit suicide. Most People regard the IRS forms as totally intimidating. The IRS is a "walk in the Park" compared to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' forms, paperwork, and protocols!
If you read carefully, you see the gross contradiction in the Appeal numbers as stated by the VA. It's as if they keep two separate sets of books on their statistics; one set that is real, and one set they push out for the Public's consumption. Every once in a while the VA screws up and quotes from the wrong set on numbers.
This system has become so overweight that it is close to imploding. Veterans who served their Country in uniform need this Agency, but they need it to work properly, efficiently, and effectively. It is not too late to restructure this behemoth since all the necessary parts exist. It simply takes a leadership team that knows what they're doing.

The Next Salvo - Fire For Effect

To:                      VA Inspector General, Dept. of Labor, 

                           NY State Dept. of Health,

                           U.S. Joint Commission, 

                           U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 

                           Martin Evans - Newsday

                           Valerie Bauman - NY Times, 

                           Kristina Rebelo - NY Times

                           

From:               Hutch Dubosque, US Military Veteran

                        10 Woolsey St., Huntington, NY   11743-2641

                        1-631-223-6107(cell) / 1-631-470-0958(home)

                        hutch.dubosque@live.com / dubosquejr@optonline.net

Subject:           Allegations of mismanagement and misconduct at the 

                        Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center

                        79 Middleville Rd., Northport, NY  11768

To Whom It May Concern,

I am a Vietnam Veteran who has been an outpatient at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY, since 1979. My presence at the Medical Center was limited due to my work schedule until 2009, when I had to retire from work for medical reasons. Since 2009, I have been present at this Facility at least three days a week. There are some issues that have become known to me recently at this Medical Center. I feel these issues need investigating, as I perceive them to be at least unethical, and at most criminal.

In January of this year, 2016, the five Operating Suites were shuttered due to contaminants emanating from the ceiling air ducts. Unless you had an operation scheduled, you never would have known of this occurrence. I was not aware of this situation until early June 2016, and it was then that I learned Veterans were being rescheduled for arbitrary dates in the future, or were being told to go to other VA Medical Facilities in the New York Metro area. Apparently, our local, State, and Federal Legislators were not informed of the situation, either, until June. The Hospital Administration was comfortable waiting for $8 million in Federal funding to renovate the five Operating Suites; a process that would reopen these Suites in 2018, at the earliest, if they could acquire such funding. A combination of two U.S Congressmen and the local Press forced the hand of the Hospital Administration, and a temporary fix was implemented. There is only one problem still not being admitted to, or addressed. The air ducts are 44 years old and, being here on Long Island, have collected sufficient moisture over the years to give rise to black mold (also pervasive in the majority of buildings that were constructed in the late 1920’s). I now have it on reliable authority that the major contaminant coming out of those air ducts was, indeed, black mold. The temporary fix that has been installed will curtail the flow of the black mold, but will never eliminate it. We now have two of the Operating Suites back in operation with a high probability that contaminants will still emanate from the ceiling air ducts. This has been deemed acceptable for the treatment of my fellow Veterans.

 REALLY??

The situation with the Hospital’s Operating Suites may be just the tip of a very large “iceberg”. There are a number of other troubling situations that I have been informed of by Hospital employees who I consider very reliable and trustworthy (Medical Staff members). In an effort to keep this brief, I will list summary thumbnails of each situation I am aware of.

1. The basement of the Hospital houses the Radiology Department and other Departments. In May, it was discovered that the air conditioning unit serving just the basement fell into disrepair and is no longer serviceable. The Hospital Administration deemed it prudent to lease portable A/C units for the summer months at a price of $120.000.00 per month. It would cost in the neighborhood of $75,000.00 to repair the existing unit. I will leave the math up to you. This Administration is apparently waiting on Federal Funding to replace the entire system.
2. It has been brought to my attention that a number of senior Medical Staff and Hospital Administrators have been either coming to work intoxicated, or becoming so while on the job.
3. It has been brought to my attention that there are once-senior Doctors who are drawing a full-time salary from this Hospital, and do not actually work here. They have been seen by Hospital Staff and fellow Veterans enjoying private practice in the local private medical sector, thus receiving two substantial means of income.
4. I realize that, nationally, the Veterans Health and Benefit Administrations have been trying to resolve and fix some large deficiencies in the system. In addressing my local situation, The VA Medical Center Administration in Northport has claimed that they have reduced the appointment “wait-times” to an average of 3.55 days. I can personally attest to wait-times in terms of months, not days. I can only conclude that this Hospital is using some sort of “Voodoo” accounting in arriving at their figures. I have the backing of every fellow Veteran I know on this matter. It seems that our Politicians, the local Press, and the VA’s Office of Inspector General are still “drinking the Kool-Aide” on this matter.

In summation, if I am aware of these few practices and situations, how much more is going on underneath the surface. Usually where there is smoke, there is fire. I am asking for a full independent audit of all business practices at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY. My fellow local Veterans deserve no less; our Nation’s Veterans deserve no less. I would appreciate your consideration in this, and am willing to discuss any of these situations with you anytime, anywhere.

Thanking you in advance,

___________________________

            Hutch Dubosque

LOCAL VA MEDICAL CENTER - A LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN

- Recent revelations just the tip of the iceberg

A number of issues have surfaced, lately, concerning our local Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northport, NY. The most recent of which has been the controversy and apparent cover-up of the closing down of all the Operating Suites at the Medical Center. I was hearing rumors, then being told by reliable sources inside the Hospital, about the true nature of the closings and the true nature of the reason for the closings. The “management” would have us all believe that miniscule particles of rust were occasionally emerging from the climate control air ducting in the ceilings. A plausibly deniable reason was given for this phenomenon and all further communication went oddly silent. Fortunately for our Veteran Community, this didn’t last too long before the local Press and our local Congressmen got a hold of it. Once that hit the fan, the “problem” was  remedied in the matter of days; after languishing in limbo for four months. What most of the Veterans thought was actually coming out of those ceiling vents, black mold, has been corroborated by the same reliable sources.

It hurts me to say that since that whole fiasco, I have been made aware of some more equally (if not more) damaging information regarding the “management” of this Medical Center. I have been pulled aside and given a detailed insight to other deeds of mismanagement, which, in my opinion,  may border on illegal and criminal. I have corroborated these tidbits of information with other sources, and to a person, what were just rumors have been confirmed as standard operating procedure here at the Northport VAMC. I have also been directed, as a Veteran stakeholder, to bring these allegations and/or practices to the attention of the United States Office of Special Counsel. From what I have been told, the Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General is singing the Company tune, drinking the Kool-Aide, and is completely incompetent in dealing with type and amount of corruption inside this Bureaucracy. The Office of Special Counsel is primarily a layer of protection for governmental whistleblowers. If this is the case, consider me a governmental whistleblower.

So much for the appetizer; now, for the main course and some red meat;

v  Medical Department Heads and Senior Staff have been either showing up for work visibly intoxicated, or becoming so during the workday. I’m sure CARF, the nonprofit accreditor of health and human services (http://www.carf.org/home/), the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) (https://www.cms.gov/), and the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP) ( http://www.hfap.org/)  would be very interested in looking into this. And, how about the local and National Press; just to name a few......

v  The aforementioned may be unethical at many levels, but this next situation has to border on criminal. I have been told that there are at least a handful of medical Doctors who are being paid a full-time salary at the VAMC, Northport, and are not required to show up for work. Indeed, they are enjoying the fruits of private practice, and earning a full paycheck from that source. Forget about Hospital Accreditation Agencies, I have a sneaking suspicion that the United States Judicial System might be very interested in taking long, hard look at these allegations.

As it is said in the business, “Watch this space!”

As the title mentions, this is just the tip of what may be a very large iceberg. It seems, the deeper you dig into the inner workings of our Veterans health care system, the more devastating unethical and criminal practices you find. There are the obvious short-term solutions to these problems, but what is needed is a complete overhaul and long-term solution to what is ailing our Veterans’ National health care system under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. I have looked at this situation for the past five years. I have tried to come up with the root cause of the problems, and the long-term solution that will right this ship. After all, our Nation’s Veterans are depending on a health care system that works as advertised and promised; they deserve no less for the service they have provided us all.

What I think I have discovered is that the very structure of the Department of Veterans Affairs,  especially the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), is what leads to a certain bureaucratic culture that necessarily breeds incompetence, unethical behaviors, arrogance and indifference toward its clientele. I don’t want to make this a blanket condemnation of each and every VA employee, but I have to say, based on observation, these personnel characteristics seem to run deep throughout the entire system.

A primary premise in coming up with a cure is the undeniable fact that the vast majority of this Nation’s Veterans do not feel comfortable, or understood, when dealing with private sector medical and mental health care. So, instead of trashing the entire system, let’s try to reorganize this Department in such a way that will enable it to properly and efficiently serve our Veterans. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; all the necessary parts already exist. A proper reshuffling of the deck is something that can realistically be done, and done in a relatively short period of time. Once I have gotten a foothold in Congress with my Mandatory Military Separation Transition Program (MMSTP), I am going to focus full-time on putting together a blueprint for reorganizing the Department of Veterans Affairs. If you can change the structure, you can change the culture. Hey, somebody has to do it!

 My  UN-healthevet

Veterans in Crisis Mode

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 

https://vva.org/publications/the-vva-veteran/  

The American Legion Magazine

http://www.legion.org/magazine

The VFW Magazine

http://www.vfw.org/News-and-Events/Magazine/

_______________________________________

Hutch Dubosque, President

PTSD Veterans Association of Northport, Inc.

10 Woolsey St., Huntington, NY   11743

hutch.dubosque@live.com / 631-223-6107