Regarding the article, “About-face likely for VA System,” by Steven Morris (March 1): Either Morris is missing the point of VA health-care reform or he’s never visited a local VA hospital.
This country has been at war for 19 of the last 50 years. No plan for universal coverage for survivors of those wars anticipated such a need for facilities. And in between, the Cold War produced veterans in need who participated in everything from aircraft and submarine development to those who were victimized by the atomic tests in the late ’40s, ’50s and early ’60s.
Today’s VA hospitals are overwhelmed by the needs of veterans and their families. There are not enough doctors. There are not enough nurses. There are not enough staff and maintenance people to keep up with the needs of maintaining these facilities.
Files get lost everyday. Outpatient demands cannot be met with any desired level of efficiency. Physician care is irregular due to turnovers in personnel.
The best thing that can happen to VA hospitals is that they do, indeed, lose 25 percent of their “business.” It would give them a chance to reorganize and achieve a level of efficiency common to most hospitals in this country. The VA needs to take a “breather.” It needs to bring its vast needs for medical reform into the modern era of medical care.
No amount of medical care can replace what the veteran has lost. But good, caring and considerate care can sometimes make the loss tolerable.
