While This Isn't A Published Scandal, It Should Be.. !

[retiredat44]

MY regular Primary care doctor, was not around, and I saw a fill in doctor for an appointment...

The VA makes me wait until the end of the month for my pain meds, even though the pharmacy continues to tell me I can orde rmy meds (morphine one week early to allow for U.S.. mail time for delivery. I sent messages, then the my-benefits gave me errors saying it longer works...

I called the call center at the VA and left 2 messages for my doctor saying it's time for my Morphine for February..

Note: I have been on morhine at least 10 years.. before then other heavy narcotics for ten years..

no answer back,, none... I left more messages saying I will be in San Diego to pick them up Tuseday... (the VA has no pharmacy within 50 miles of me...).

I go my my regular appointment, shot in spine... I go the pharmacy, they have no prescription,, I go to the primary care and ask, they tel me they will send my doctor an email agian... no answer.. I go the the pharmacist for primary cary, she sends an e-mail and tells me my new doctor has no communicated or logged onto her computer for five days!

no one can find her, I go back to pahrmacy, no help, I go to the emergency room, and they tell me go back to the primary care clinic and ask for my case nurse,, I go back and ask them to find a case nurse, they tell me they don't have any...

they find a nurse, who contacts someone 50 miles away, back at the clinic I use in Oceanside,,, and they find a nurse who find a doctor who will write the prescription. I go back to pharmacy.. and they first say they don't have anything, then they said they do...

mind you this has taken 2.5 hours of work since I left the clinic that shot stuff in my spine...

I wait 45 minutes,, then I go back to the DAV and find the driver who told me I could go take care of business because no one else was finished had left without me, even though leaving time is 12:00pm..

he left 45 minutes early without waiting for me,, even though I tiold him were i was going and I gold at least one other person..

so, I have a doctor no one can find for five days,,,

I called my wife who happned to be home and she came to get me...

I still have no doctor...

mind you have havr been under a doctors care the for about 14 years... everyone knows me..

I am dying from pancreas disease,, I just don't know the day the pancreas puts me back into the death bed,, but it's coming soon..

oh, btw, I told the nurse to tell the other nurse their computers no longer let patients use my health to use secure messaging at that clinic, she told me not their problem, go talk tot he office at the library.. I go ther today too, but the only person there deson't know anything, the regular person sptepped away...

I left them a note asking them to fix secure messaging with my clinic..

he said leave your number so we can tell you when it's fixed, I said, I will know it's fixed when it works.. but left my info anyways..

and they actually have press one if you are feeling suicidal when you call them...

!!!!

Edited January 31, 2012 by retiredat44

[carlie]

retired,

I know this doesn't help at all but I truly - really am so sorry for all the

run around you are getting.

Hang in there buddy as the options are few.

[mysticcherokee usn vet]

Hi, I go by Mystic. I too am very sorry, but not at all surprised. In the past when Iv e run into meds. issues such as this I spoke with the manager of the outpatient Pharmacy, way up in his Office. Dont call when upset! ER, well thats a tall order, but calm yerself, knowing you will get some help, but keep in mind theyre completely innocent and new on this scene. That outlook may help you calm yerself on a nasty issue.After all is done and settled. Youve his name rank phone number, etc. THEN bring up the call issue. At the very least he may have a number you can call. Good luck, hang tough,it'll be an Dont sweat the small stuff and youd be surprised how small it can all get, eh! it'll be an annoying memory, n more or less,PROMISE! STRONG BEAR Hug, Mystic

PS- Let us know if you get some satisfaction! Ya might make a new friend! In high places, no less!

I hope this helped!

[retiredat44]

update: 02-01-12

fixed spelling and fixed a few things, although it's probably still not right.. sorry..

-----

this wasn't my first rodeo, but many years have past since I was up fixing bizarre problems... they changed things too and no longer say they have case mangagers... and the people at the primary desk at the primary clinic seem to have a complex about letting you contact higher ups for problems they have no clue how to handle,,, if they had given me the right person to begin with I would not have goe back downstairs to the Emergency room..

I am not sure if anyone understands the dire situation I face if I get sick again...

i have bee through withdrawls several times, and even before necrotizing pancreatitis, it was horrible, now I face death if I get an infection...

having people blow me off telling me they can't help.... and putting me though this, well, it will hurt me with anger, something I can't afford...

The nurse that found the person by phone back at my clinic 50 miles away, was trying to catch up on something like 40 voice mails when she stopped to help me...

I was puzzled when I tried to explain how I also use the secure messaging to send my doctors notes and it was broken, she told me that not important.. but it is another way to communicate with doctors and nurses,, I don't think she understood the importance of that way of communication.. the patients don't get diret lines to doctors we go through voice mail hell and call centers...

and if we go in person and talk through holes in 3 inch glass to clerks who have low IQ's... well, you probably know how far that get's you..

I sent several call center messages and so did several. other people..... my clinic never recieved once message accoring to some head nurse who got the wheel rolling after this higher up nurse called my clinic, apparently, even the call center messages 'All' went unanswered, and they were never read over those days,, and it appears the whole network was broken at the Oceanside clinic...

how do you explain them not getting any messages from anyone who sent them in? by phone e-mail, and secure messaging..

semething bigger happened here..

also, I was told that 3 doctors had quit within several days making a mess out of how they handle patients, and learned it can take up to 4 months to get a new doctor... the last doctor I saw was a temp...

but I was only told my doctor was on vacation, not that she had left for good...

I learned there are no case mangers, they abolished those, but it don't amke sense to me, I have had several case managers in 2 or 3 different clinics over the past few years..

when someone is sick with a life long illness they used to assign a case manager.. now they claim they didn't work so they did away with them, I think that is a huge mistake, that is exactly what some of us patients need!

I wish someone could alert the VA director and them them it's broken...

I am too sick,, I can't handle all this...

btw, at leat one years before I was hospitalized witha 5 inch cyst on my pancreas, a huge large ball of mass was crushing my stomach and intestines.. it wa spushing out my stomach like 'he Alien' I begged the doctors to feel the mass pushing out and they said they could'Not' feel it.. the next year was spent in the hospital bed fighting for my life in hell, from them trying toremove the cyst..

for 20 years I was treated like a mental patient because no one believed my sickness and though t I was a kook.. and most if not all were government workers (except for Kaiser, who are not feds) of some type..

during my SSDI aplicatio proces they sent me to quacks of al type calling themselves doctors.. one pshyc doctor asked why I was angry and I tryied telling him I was very sick..

I've been treated as an animal,, and there is no one that seems to have the gut or intelligence to makes things right..

I have to say that as an inpatient I was treated very well...

and for the most part I am. but in seems no one has the power to fix problems...

but there are few hidden.. you have to walk the isles and beg people to tell you who there is the right person to talk to,, as if they are under orders to shoo people away...

sorry,,, it's late and another shitty day in paradise awaits my screwed up miserable body tomorrow..

Edited February 1, 2012 by retiredat44

[Notorious Kelly]

ret44,

You deserve better than this.

Have you written the media?

Are you able to use Medicare?

I believe the parallel VA health system should be abolished and let us just use the civilian system.

VA workers could compete in the private sector with everyone else.

[mysticcherokee usn vet]

Im sorry doll. I too have fibromyalgia and wasnt believed for many years. Shitty care even AFTER dzed. I wont go to ve med. Ive said so. So I understand, and understand what w/d's are like. It ALL SUCKS, and we dont want to be particip[ants. But we are, so put one foot in front od the other, and do what ya gotta do, folow the chain of command. Ya kniw what THAT is or ya wouldnt be HERE!

Hugs, Mystic