Two years ago, a scandal rocked the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs when it was discovered wait times were so long at some health care clinics, some veterans died before being treated.
U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler met with local veterans to hear their stories and to find out what has changed. On Tuesday morning, in downtown Vancouver, she got an answer: not much.
Judy Russel with the Clark County Veterans Assistance Center told the congresswoman that the veterans who are the sickest have the hardest time scheduling appointments with providers.
“One of the biggest complaints I hear is from people who are really, really ill, who have Stage 3 cancer, who have leukemia or something like that, and they seem to be the ones who have the most difficulty maneuvering the system,” Russel said. She said they have to wait too long to make an appointment; or once they are scheduled, the clinic is far from their home and finding transportation is difficult.
Gordon Huggins, 78, a Vietnam War veteran who lives in Castle Rock, said he filed a health care claim with the VA more than a year ago.
“It took me a year before I ever heard anything,” Huggins told Herrera Beutler, and he ended up calling again to re-file his claim. “About two weeks after I re-file my claim, I get a letter again, and they want all this information. I sent them all the tests and everything I had. I can’t send anything more.”
Huggins paused and gave an exasperated laugh.
“They wait until you die, and then you’re OK,” he said.
Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, said wait times in the local region are two to three times the national average. In 2015, the VA was given $15 billion to hire new staff in the hopes of reducing wait times. Herrera Beutler said she was told 470 were hired locally.
“Which is a great number, and then we followed up with and asked, ‘and how many have you lost in that time, in turns of turnover?’ We were told 459. So, that’s a net gain of 11. That’s not going to necessarily reduce our wait lines,” she said.
Herrera Beutler expressed frustration at the “whole bureaucratic process” that veterans have to go through.
“This is hard, because it feels like we take two steps forward and two steps back,” she said.
The congresswoman, who is seeking re-election, said she’s championing a directive requiring the VA to collect data to start tracking turnover and figure out why providers are leaving. She’s also pushing for the agency to identify why the hiring process takes so long.
“The VA can’t provide efficient, quality care to Southwest Washington veterans when it is chronically turning over its staff of care providers,” she said in a statement.
