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The Broken VA

An ongoing disgrace.
Veterans Affairs Michigan

The president today said he was going to fix the Veterans Administration. Well, hurry up. My dad, a 79-year-old veteran, has been waiting a long time to get his medications from the VA, which is running very late in refilling a prescription he called in a long time ago (I know this, because I help him manage his meds). On some of these medications, he can’t get a refill without a VA doctor seeing him. He called and called trying to get an appointment, and finally got through last week. They gave him an appointment — October 30! Many of his prescriptions will have long since run out by then.

I’ve already gotten involved to get his private doctor to prescribe meds to fill in the gap, and thank goodness he has the financial resources to pay for these pills. What about vets who don’t? What about those vets who don’t have someone to advocate for them?

I was talking with him this afternoon about all this, and he said he’d like me to take him to the October 30 appointment, so I can see how swamped the VA clinic is. “They don’t have enough doctors,” he said.

It’s a disgrace that veterans are treated so shabbily.

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