Because whatever the number is, it’s apparently “more than forty:” “At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list. The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources.”
…Only it wasn’t much of a secret, given that what went on here. Essentially, VA officials created a dummy list that made it look like they were processing veterans care in a timely fashion, while keeping actual sick veterans on a separate list that had some of them waiting for months for healthcare appointments. This, indeed, resulted in veterans dying before they could be seen by a doctor: and before anyone thinks that I’m exaggerating the situation, please note that everybody concedes that Phoenix VA officials were actually shredding records to hide the problem. So this was all known, including internally – but the resulting stink raised inside the organization over this went nowhere for months, apparently. Take a gander at this:
Continue reading How many veterans will have to die of neglect before Eric Shinseki resigns?