Scandals that come at the expense of veterans at VA medical centers are nothing new.
Most veterans learn fast that their service is often met with a mixed response, be that today’s one-day salute to year-round attention.
Most of us have consistently voted to for the latter, to honor veterans in tangible ways with benefits ranging from low-interest loans to covering the cost of a college degree.
Probably the most beneficial way we show our esteem for veterans is the promise of lifelong health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ medical centers.
Let’s be clear. Our nation owes the best health care available to veterans, who put their lives and health in harm’s way for us. Yet, in the past five years alone we have read of one scandal after another within the VA.
In 2014, the VA was wracked by a scandal about secret waiting lists to hide the fact that veterans were not receiving medical care within its 14- to 30-day waiting period. Veterans were left on the lists for months and were only transferred to an official list when the wait time would land within the acceptable time.
In this scandal, tragically, some 40 veterans died as a result of awaiting treatment in one VA facility while similar scheduling schemes in up to 10 states undercut timely care for veterans.
Other scandals since include discovery of massive backlogs of disability claims, a culture rife with false record-keeping and the resignations of two of three recent VA secretaries in disgrace. Sadly, there’s still more in the recent past and today, including two such revelations too close for comfort.
Investigations by the VA’s inspector general’s office, the FBI and the state’s northern district’s U.S. attorney’s office are all under way into at least six suspicious deaths at the Louis A. Johnson VA Hospital in Clarksburg.
Meanwhile, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has called on the VA secretary to explain serious reports of sexual harassment at the Beckley VA facility and other sites nationwide.
Numerous reports have been filed regarding the Beckley VA facility and one person has since been fired.
In the Clarksburg case, Sen. Joe Manchin says he receives up to 20 calls a week from people who are unsure if their loved ones were not among the victims.
Manchin has continued to call for answers about these deaths under suspicious circumstance that apparently came to the attention of the VA hospital and others a year ago.
No charges have been brought, including against a “person of interest,” who no longer works at the hospital.
Probably no organization is more dependent on leadership than the active-duty military.
By extension, that need for command and confidence extends to the VA, who veterans look to for health care and help..
On this hallowed day, we call on the VA to start going above and beyond its duty to our veterans.
