Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Trouble at the VA?

There's trouble brewing at the Iowa City VA: Senator Grassley has requested an investigation into reports of a hostile working environment and deficiencies in patient care.

To be honest, I don't know all that much about the VA. I know the VA Police/Security have always been extremely professional and competent (unlike other hospitals I know of- just sayin') and I know a couple of people that work there but not really having any military connections or knowing any veterans that have had medical treatment there, it's hard to say if there's any substance to this or not. I think transparency is always good- doubly or quadruple-y so when it comes to the care of our veterans- and if Senator Grassley can get the Inspector General to poke in every corner possible to see what, if any substance there is to these complaints, then that's good.

I hate to use the comment section of the P-C as a barometer for anything but the comments (there were 4 when I started writing this, there might be more now) seem to indicate that there's been a lot of problems that have been endemic for what seems like awhile. I really hope for the sake of the veterans that work and receive treatment there that's not true and I hope that an investigation results that gets all the way to the bottom of this.

(A weird factoid: it was bizarre when I started at Dispatch, b/c I kept hearing ambulances being sent to the VA for heart attacks and things of that nature and when I asked about it- I was told that the VA didn't have it's own ER- so they transferred a lot of critical cases over to the, thankfully close by, UIHC. That was 2 years ago though, so that might not be true anymore.)

UPDATED: The Inspector General has weighed in and wants data- so they're gonna survey their employees...

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