As maybe half the readers of these boards are veterans, let me introduce myself. I'm one of you who grew up in the hippie (Vietnam) era and faced the choice of "Rice Paddy" or "Navy"... Gee that was easy. I have been in any out of VA hospitals and Clinics all over the country, in towns and cities large and small. As a positive, I will say that "most" of the employees are pretty decent and dedicated. Their hands seem to be as tied as were the Vets in Nam. They are underfunded and often in crumbling facilities. Stupid rules and government dodging keeps many from getting medications they need. Walk into a hospital with your liver hanging out and the doctor does his or her best for you... then tells you there is no pain medication because THAT is a narcotic and you get on the list to see PAIN CLINIC. PC is usually one doctor part-time per VA reigon and the wait is 6-9 months... Good luck if your hurting.
At the local level we have the VA next to Shands downtown. Not a really bad location as it is central and easy to get to without a car. But thats where the NICE ends. The garage is falling down, in fact already did, got condemed and good old uncle Sam came out and put some steel straps in to hold the floors up... I DON'T PARK THERE!! Sam doesn't follow local codes or he'd be out on his ass and a Confederate flag would be flying over the building. The wait for primary care today is DECEMBER, hope you don't have the flu. But hey, at least Jacksonville is clean, at Jackson in Miami, the bathrooms are piled with soiled underwear and clothes, sinks and toilets are overflowing, and one has to batter their way into the facilities at times, though pissing in the hall would probably go unnoticed.
Where Jacksonville fails?
WAY, WAY, Understaffed... in EVERY AREA.
Doctors close at 4:30 and SO DOES PHARMACY, so if your amoung the last to get an RX, it isn't going to happen today... VA Scripts can't be used outside of the system.
No VA PX store
NO VA CAFE
Even minor surgical or complex tests require a long van ride to Gainesville or LAKE CITY!
Meanwhile in MICKEY LAND, Orlando has got the muscle to push the VA into using the former Naval Hospital and now the "clinic" is becoming a full service VA HOSPITAL... and it's 75% BRAND NEW!
TAMPA, GAINESVILLE, MIAMI, LAKE CITY, ORLANDO, WEST PALM... all big military centers like Jax eh?
BASTARDS!
Okay, I've vented my rant, want to hear my song too... only I was 18 and finished school. QuoteI was seventeen when I quit school,
the year that I enlisted.
I don’t recall just why I did,
my Mom says I insisted.
I had some strange idea then,
that Uncle Sam was right.
My Mama cried, she signed the card,
and I went off to fight.
But I just found out this morning,
the Doctor told me so;
They killed me in Vietnam
and I didn’t even know.
Got off the plane in Vietnam,
it didn’t look like war.
With all I saw, I started wondering,
just what we came here for.
Some Officers got drunk at night
and cheated on their wives.
While those peasants on the other side,
were fighting for their lives.
You know the army tried some fancy stuff,
to bring them to their knees.
Like Agent Orange defoliant,
to clear the brush and trees.
We’d fly all day above the trails,
through clouds of poison spray.
But they never said that chemical
would hurt our health today.
But I got the news this morning,
the Doctor told me so;
They killed me in Vietnam
and I didn’t even know.
Well I tried hard to forget that war,
like everybody else did.
I settled down, got married
and I even had some kids.
Our children both had birth defects,
the Doctors had their doubts.
They never said what caused it,
but I think I just found out.
Because I just found out this morning,
the Doctor told me so;
They killed me in Vietnam
and I didn’t even know.
The Doctor says I have some time,
he was trying to be kind.
You know, I’ve never been a radical,
but this has changed my mind.v
I’d be so proud to hear my sons say
“Hell no, we won’t go!â€
“Because you killed our Dad in Vietnam,
and he didn’t even know.â€
This Agent Orange from Vietnam,
we carry with us still.
It stays inside for years and years,
and does its best to kill.
You might get cancer of the liver,
you might get cancer of the skin.
You might get a VA Disability,
you might not live to win.
Because I got the news this morning,
the Doctor told me so;
They killed me in Vietnam
and I didn’t even know…
They killed me in Vietnam
and I didn’t even know.
Echoes of Vietnam: VA Stalls, Dissembles While Vets Suffer and Die
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted July 4, 2008.
The latest episode of the Department of Veterans Affairs' callous denial of veterans' suffering is a continuation of a long tradition. ToolsQuoteHealth and Wellness RSS Feed
On June 10, U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs back into court. Conti is presiding over a lawsuit brought by veterans against the VA, charging the agency with systematically denying veterans the services and support they so desperately need. Conti demanded that the VA explain why it had failed to produce certain critical (and incriminating) documents.
Among those documents was an e-mail written by the now-infamous Norma Perez. It read: "Given that we have more and more compensation-seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of adjustment disorder, R/O [ruling out] PTSD."
Bob Filner, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said it was inconceivable that a low-level staffer like Perez could have written such an e-mail on her own authority. Barack Obama called it "unacceptable" and "tantamount to fraud." John McCain called it "not too important."
Lost somehow in the high-decibel rhetoric of the moment is a historical dimension of this story that I think deserves some attention. This is not the first time the VA has acted as adversary rather than advocate. Thirty years ago, almost to the day, Max Cleland, then head of the VA, circulated an equally directive memo to his staff that read:
In view of the remaining uncertainties on the long-term effects of the defoliants, all VA personnel should avoid premature commitment to any diagnosis of defoliant poisoning. Similarly, entries in medical records should not contain statements about the relationship between a veteran's illnesses and defoliant exposure unless unequivocal confirmation of such a connection has been established.
(The defoliants Cleland refers to were Agent Orange and other dioxin-based chemicals the United States sprayed over Vietnam.)
In the meantime, Cleland instructed VA staff to deny all Agent Orange claims. He also refused to undertake any kind of epidemiological study because, he claimed, the necessary outreach to veterans would only cause them "needless anxiety."
Then, as now, veterans' "anxiety" was a hot topic at the VA. In testimony before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in February 1980, Cleland justified the agency's practice of first, and often exclusively, giving veterans with dioxin-related symptoms psychiatric exams. Obviously, he explained to the committee, if "in FY 1979, 46 percent (of veterans) had received care for psychiatric disorders," that proved, ipso facto, that psychiatric care was what they needed. They were suffering from "post-Vietnam syndrome." All their symptoms were in their heads. Veterans tried to sue the VA over its "no health effects" policy, but the agency took the rather astonishing position that veterans had "no standing" to challenge the policies. They were allowed to sue the chemical manufacturers, but not the U.S. government, the entity that bought the poison and ordered it spread -- in concentrations four times that recommended for civilian use and with total disregard for the health and safety of its own soldiers and Vietnamese citizens. Veterans' lawyers suggested that the VA's position would lead "to a government of men, not law."
Wouldn't you think the at least the good city and/or the State of Florida would drop the park entry fees for 100% disabled veterans? Just some little token of "Thanks Boys..." The other States, most Cities and even the Federal Government all have such programs... HERE? FORGET IT! OCKLAWAHA
why would the City (or state for that matter) be responsible for what occurs at a VA Hospital?
Based on knowledge from the VA expansion in Gainesville, the feds don't seem too interested in building parking garages.....but again, this is not the city's fault!
Enter the City Hall on the East Side and the first line of defense for local veterans is the EXCELLENT CITY RUN VETERANS AFFAIRS OFFICE. This is NOT federal, and they help as a middleman with all manner of VA cases and claims, benefits etc... We also have a host of non-profit groups in downtown which include the VET CENTER and others that are activist groups. Local politicians with the will to face down the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, and make a stand, can and do get their palms greased. We are so far behind other Florida towns in our VA facility that it is just a step above going to the field hospital at the Olustee Re-enactment.
Not the local VA's fault, not anyone but the VA and the Federal Government tossing the veterans aside, but go figure... Now take a C. Brown, or J. Mica, and let them get into this forum and watch the fireworks. Also the CITY and STATE DOES have the power to change local benefits given to those who have gave all. For
example, for being poisoned, I can park anywhere downtown for free.
OCKLAWAHA
NEXT RANT? Well how about trying to park in front of the clinic. Is this the city's job? It IS a city street after all. But access is now limited, as the City allowed Shands to build "THE GREAT WALL OF JACKSONVILLE" between the Veterans Clinic and Shands. Need a sandwich? Coffee? towel or change of shorts? Sorry fella's. The Specialty VA clinics are scattered within the Shands complex so it's not like there isn't foot traffic already. Aparently too many undesirable former military types make the UF boys nervous? Now to get to speciality, one must walk the mine field of 8Th and Boulevard, around CAPE HORN. God help the boys that came home with no legs, hips or missing feet from mines... Oh hell, just veterans.
Oh right! This was about parking... Well seems BOULEVARD for all of it's grand name, is a very narrow two lane street with a host of no-parking signs here and there. To the City's credit, there are a FEW spots in front of the clinic, but then the street is a busy bus route and one must park partly over the curb and near the sidewalk to avoid having your car remodeled. It got so bad, that deep ruts evolved between the walk and the street and roumor mill has it 3 Yugos and a Hummer were swollowed up by the trench warfare. They sent in a search party that also vanished, 2 army divisions and the Mormon choir. DAMN! If you got the transaxle stuck on the edge of the curb, you couldn't move at all, until some legless guys came out to give you a hand. (The HELLS ANGELS do a good job of taking care of the vets in this way). The other day I REALLY got excited, my GOD, COJ had big machines, dump trucks the whole nine yards out front. "GONNA GIVE YOU BOYS SOME REAL PARKING!" The reality hit a few days later, I returned to pick up medicine and yep, there was a block long streak of yellow-mud graded in the pits and the crews and signs were gone. REAL PARKING JACKSONVILLE STYLE. Again God help you if your in a chair, not even "Hover-round" could get you out of this one.
OCKLAWAHA
Wonder how many veterans of "PORK CHOP HILL", "MIG ALLEY", "INCHONG", "HAMBURGER HILL", "LEYTE GULF", "THE BULDGE", "TARAWA", "IWO JIMA", "THE ARDEN", "ANZIO", and "NORMANDY", were thinking in the heat of battle..."Gee this really isn't JACKSONVILLE'S or FLORIDA'S problem, maybe we should just let the boys in Washington take care of it...
(http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg208/moojyj/DSC00320.jpg)
If we veterans shared your attitue of "do nothing", you could have looked forward to a life in a free education resort. I understand some people "LIKE" the smell of Zyklon B.
OCKLAWAHA
I'm with you brother.