West Virginia VA doctor: At least two waiting list patients committed suicide

VA hospital
US Dept of Veterans Affairs

Appalling if true. This story keeps going from bad to worse:

A West Virginia doctor is coming forward with new allegations against the Department of Veterans Affairs, claiming that she too was told to put patients seeking treatment off for months on end — and that at least two of them committed suicide.

The claims add to the mounting controversy surrounding the VA, and allegations in several states that workers were concealing information about the long wait times veterans encountered.Β VA Secretary Eric Shinseki testified last week before Congress on the scandal, but so far has resisted calls for his resignation.

Dr. Margaret Moxness, who says she was employed at the Huntington VA Medical Center in Charleston, W.Va., from 2008 to 2010, told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that she was told to delay treatment even after she told supervisors they needed immediate care. She said at least two patients committed suicide while waiting for treatment between appointments.

β€œI was in a very tight-knit community,” Moxness said. β€œThere was lots of extracurricular support: family, faith, vet centers. So we had help, but no thanks to the VA. …I mean, these men were eventually going to need more than a visit every 10 months.”

Moxness, a psychiatrist, says the VA administrators lost touch with patients and claims they were compassionless.

[…]

Moxness, who is currently writing a book on suicide, said her patients would be forced to wait Β β€œmonths” for a second visit. She said that β€œmeans they’re partially treated, which means they’re worse off than no treatment at all.”

Moxness said when she complained to her supervisors that it was harmful to partially treat patients, they stopped talking to her.

β€œI was functionally silenced,” she said.

As the article goes on to note, many others in several cities around the country have stepped forward as well to note the excessive wait times at other VA facilities nationwide.

Citing this as a prime example of the serious downsides of government-run healthcare, John Fund writes in response:

If our government has any obligation to fulfill its many promises on health care, it should be first and foremost to the men and women who served in our armed forces. But the scandal over hidden waiting lists at a growing number of veterans’ hospitals (seven so far) β€” wherein dozens of veterans died while waiting months for vital treatment, and the VA covered up the lengthy wait times β€” should make everyone wonder whether we can place our trust in a government-managed health-care system. TheΒ Dayton Daily NewsΒ reported on Sunday that its investigation of a database of claims paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that the words β€œdelay in treatment” were used 167 times. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle the claims. There could well be many more cases of β€œdeath by delay” at the VA that never came to light.

Are there lessons in the VA scandal for the rest of us if Obamacare survives and even expands?

You betcha. The first lesson is that as government expands taxpayer subsidies for health care, the demand will always outstrip supply.

[…]

The veterans’ hospital scandals now in the news in the United States show just how bad things can get when the pressure of patient demand and waiting lists affects bureaucratic behavior. As many as 40 veterans reportedly died at a Phoenix veterans’ facility because they couldn’t get the care they needed. VA administrators there and at other hospitals apparently covered it up by establishing secret waiting lists and falsifying reports.

No one is suggesting that such scandals are widespread in the general health-care system. But they should serve as a warning sign of what could happen as the pressure to ration, inherent in all government-managed health care, is applied to the general population.

Indeed.

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