The VA near where I rode ambulance had no emergency room, so emergency patients were usually taken to the nearest public hospital, with arrangements handled by radio and phone while enroute. While I was in the Navy I dislocated my shoulder in a fall while I was hurrying to catch a cab to go back to my ship. I went directly to the public hospital, who refused to treat me because I was in uniform, and insisted on referring me to the VA. Without going into the complications of getting from there to the VA, I sat in the VA for a couple of hours while the duty Dr. decided to see me at all, at which point I was issued a chit and sent back to the public hospital.Medic624 wrote:As a Paramedic I have also taken ppl to the VA and been a Pt at the VA and it's not all that bad but what makes it horrible is the back log and bureaucracy that impedes the care and service provided to the veterans. It's the ppl who are not in direct Pt care that make the decisions as tomwhat will and won't be done for the patient...n5wd wrote:I've never been to the VA as a patient, but I have carried a lot of patients to the VA facilities in Fort Worth and Dallas, and I never met anyone there, physician, nurse, med tech, etc, who didn't seem like they weren't interested in doing the best job for the patient that they could. Granted, some of the facilities weren't the most modern, but the people staffing them seemed to be top notch.v-rog wrote:Well aware of my health situation due to two combat deployments, my VA and civilian doc went out of their way to help me attain my Chl. I must be one of the lucky ones.
At the public hospital, the same triage nurse who refused me service at 1am, wanted to know, at 5am, why I had waited so long to get treatment.