Inside San Antonio's VA скачать в хорошем качестве

Inside San Antonio's VA

SAN ANTONIO -- A group of local Veteran Affairs employees say they're tired of seeing veterans suffer while their bosses got huge bonuses. They sat down exclusively with News 4 Troubleshooter Stacey Cameron. Fearing retribution, but wanting to come forward, we agreed to hide the identity and alter the voices of the four VA whistle-blowers. They work scheduling medical appointments for veterans here at San Antonio's Audi Murphy Veteran's hospital. One is a veteran, another married to a vet. Their account echos the scandals coming out of the VA in Phoenix, Austin and across the country. Bosses manipulating patient schedules for years, hiding delays in care and risking veteran's health in order to cash in on performance goals. One witness says he can recall these issues have been going on for 10 years. Four VA employees gave us shocking details into claims the VA system here in San Antonio is broken. "I know there are patients that leave the hospital very sick needing appointments and those appointments are never scheduled, they fall through the cracks," said another witness. Our whistle-blowers say those cracks exist because there aren't enough doctors to cover all the vets needing follow up care. "We attempt to schedule them, but there may not be enough openings. They might be over capacity." So routine and critical care is often delayed for months because of the backlog. According to these schedulers, hospital management directs them to hide the delays. "We're instructed not to put people on waiting lists and I think that's what the inspectors look for. Instead they're put on recall lists and nobody looks at those lists." Put on recall vets don't get a follow up appointment. Instead, the patient is told to call the hospital, but because of a quirk in the VA scheduling system, they can't schedule past 90 days. So sick vets in San Antonio are often told to call the hospital, more than three months later and set their own appointments. But whistle-blowers say doctor schedules are rarely open. "So this patient is going to be put in the recall again for another 90 days. And hopefully he calls in when there is an appointment." According to these schedulers, as long as a vet stays on recall, it doesn't look like medical care is being delayed. "However, a lot of our patients are elderly, sick. If they're critical care how are they supposed to call in? Everybody should leave with an appointment but it's just not happening." If these sick elderly patients don't call in, they're put on another list -- recall delinquency. Our whistle-blowers say that list is exploding every month. "I can grow upwards of hundreds." Last week a source with ties inside the San Antonio VA gave News 4 a partial recall delinquency list. It shows 150 veterans needing medical care in the beginning of May. Whistle-blowers say it's just the tip of the iceberg and we're told that list could have as many as 3 to 400 vets on it. We spoke with veterans on this delinquency list and spoke with one who it took more than two years to get a disability rating. Another Vietnam vet, who it took more than a year to get an appointment with his primary care physician. While schedulers are required to contact vets on the delinquency list, the call back information is often incorrect or even worse, deceased. We contacted the VA here in San Antonio, detailing these claims. Officials wouldn't sit for an interview but released a statement that reads in part: "South Texas Veterans Health Care System (STVHCS) continue to confirm that executive leadership would never knowingly and willingly mislead veterans regarding their appointment scheduling. STVHCS leadership have made it clear to scheduling clerks that no wait list formats of any kind other than our vista scheduling software should be used. An April 25-28 internal fact-finding by South Texas Veterans Health Care System (STVHCS) regarding claims made by employee Brian Turner were investigated and could not be substantiated. We are either enhancing clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner, or where we cannot increase capacity, increasing the care we acquire in the community through non-VA care".