I have a friend that s a Vietnam veteran suffering from the effect of exposure to Agent Orange. Recently he had to be taken to a local emergency center stabilized and then when they tried to send him to the local VA which in Cleveland is the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center (named after a local politician of course) the EM center was told they had no beds available! Since he needed treatment he was shuffled around between two local hospitals for two days before the VA let him in. When he got there the ward was mostly empty but he assumed they had let people out.
Later after receiving treatment and being released and recovering at home he started to receive billing for the two hospitals he had been sent to because the VA would not take him even though he was entitled. The bills were not inconsequential amounting to thousands of dollars. Which the VA said they were not responsible for the costs! I could maybe understand a minor outpatient situation but this was life threatening and they refused to admit him.
Though a local tea party association with some connection a call was made to an Ohio Senator and weeks later it appeared the VA was covering some, but not all, of those costs. I don’t know if this was from the Ohio senator or just the efforts of my friends. But in discussions with my friends more information came out.
A relative of my friend who is also a Vietnam Vet had a similar experience recently and his doctor told him that it was standard policy for the VA to say they had no beds. Now I don’t know if this is part of the other scandal at the VA but it seems that they have a policy sample of 2 but the same story with the doctors telling one of them that he felt that was common to say, “there are no beds available” that this is just a way to force the veteran to incur costs or maybe they will just die and they will be done with them.
I am also a Vietnam Vet with a disability from wounds in Vietnam and I go to the Louis Stokes VA for my treatments so far not life threatening nor requiring admission but it is a NEW building with lots of capacity so from my experience the “No Beds” doesn’t seem right to me.
This post is placed here to see if any others have got this treatment and if so please leave a comment here so we can take action on this potentially serious problem.
Centinel2012 