VA scandal hits home

There are many instances where one might respond to news from elsewhere with the thought: At least it’s not us.

One example might be the Veterans Health Administration scandal of 2014, in which it was revealed that officials at VA hospitals in Phoenix had kept some veterans waiting so long for care that dozens of those patients died without being seen. The original report was bad enough, but as the story unfolded, it became clear the practice went beyond the Phoenix area. Amid an extensive Justice Department criminal investigation and congressional reform of the agency, the top Veterans Administration health official and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs both resigned.

CNN later reported that, nationally, nearly 64,000 veterans who sought care had never been scheduled, and another 57,000 were facing a 90-day wait to be seen.


It was surely a black eye for the VA, and reason for veterans and their families in New Hampshire and Vermont to count their blessings and be thankful it wasn’t them.


Or perhaps not.


A closer look at the VA’s practices in the Twin States indicates some of those veterans waiting too long to be seen were locals after all. Not that the worst of the scandal was felt here, but it now appears some of the tactics being used by those in charge of facilities in Phoenix were employed in Manchester and White River Junction as well.


An internal national Veterans Affairs audit done in the wake of the scandal in 2014 found “managers in Phoenix and elsewhere used secret waiting lists to cover up the amount of time it took for veterans to get appointments.”


In Manchester, the VA’s Office of the Inspector General found similar lists were kept. The investigators concluded the lists weren’t “secret.” They consisted of veterans whose appointments were scheduled far out and wanted to be given a call if there was a cancellation, so they could be seen sooner. That may be a common medical practice, but that those lists were kept in writing — not in the computerized scheduling program — certainly leaves staff there open to accusations that they were playing with the lists to make the facility look better.


In Vermont, the same inspector found facility staff was told to make appointments for a date and time that fit the VA’s preferred schedule, a manipulation that effectively made wait times appear to be zero days.


“It was largely corroborated that this manipulation was employed by schedulers at the instruction of a former and current supervisor of the (medical support assistants) and with the knowledge of the second-level supervisor,” the report found.


Again, that might have made the facility’s administrators look good in Washington, for a time, but it’s not very good service.


A local VA administrator told N.H. Public Radio such “errors” in scheduling may have been caused by poor training and have since been corrected. The national scope of such practices, as reported in the VA’s own audit, belies the idea that it could be chalked up to simple training issues.


The problems experienced in Manchester and White River Junction don’t compare in scope with those in Arizona and elsewhere, but the similar nature indicates the VA’s problems weren’t isolated, either.


Those who have served in our military, whether injured in combat or not, agreed to put their mental and physical health — indeed their very lives — at risk in part with the assurance they’d be cared for later by the VA. They deserve better than they’ve gotten.