Sec Shinseki Press Release Minutes Ago

[Berta]

WASHINGTON (May 16, 2014) – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki made the following statement:

“Today, I accepted the resignation of Dr. Robert Petzel, Under Secretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As we know from the Veteran community, most Veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA health care, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care.

I am committed to strengthening Veterans’ trust and confidence in their VA healthcare system.

I thank Dr. Petzel for his four decades of service to Veterans.”

Was Petzel due to retire??? I didn,t see this coming.....He is # 2 at VA

[john999]

I think Petzel is going to be on the board of WWP. You know Peake works for QTC. Is this a conflict of interest? There is so much corruption at the VA that the last person to get help at the VA is a disabled vet. Everybody else comes first in the gravy train. Every leech that has a sucker can hook onto the VA for a free lunch and I don't mean the vets with claims.

John

[ArNG11]

I don't really care about people resigning or giving up their position, I'd rather them be held accountable for what they have done and not done. If it were anyone else they would be crucified. I think I rather let them be in a locked room with the families of the veterans who were allowed to die on their watch. Sadistic maybe, but there would be some justice in that.

[63SIERRA]

The employees of the VA cannot exist in a bubble. This is a country of laws . No one should be exempt from the penalties of breaking the law. period. There is a reason that laws and punisment exists, it is because without fear of punishment people will run rampant and commit crimes and neglect just as we are seeing is happening at the VA. This business of hiding behind the white cloak of a doctor, or the title of a government agency has to come to an end. People are dying, but also people are needlessly suffering. The guy who died with cancer. how much he had to suffer, when he could have at least been placed in hospice care and medicated to alleve some of his pain and suffering. How many other veterans have suffered needlessly, because hospital administrators lied, to protect thier yearly bonuses.. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that a similar action is going to take place at the Regional Offices. Someone high up in the organization is going to squeal and people are going to start talking.

We need to be very careful of how we allow the VA to word thier actions. Lets not forget, they are masters at manipulating the english laguage, in order to downplay things they want to downplay. The term "gaming the system" seems to be really popular right now. If you thing abt it, it sound very mild. What they are doing is FALSIFYING GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS , which is a crime. Gaming the system sounds more like a kid cheating on a video game.

The wordplay trick is not a new thing. When countries want to commit genocide, the call it " ethnic clensing". it doesnt sound as bad. But its still murder.

So the message here, is lets not let the Va decide how to label thier crimes, lets call them what they truly are.

Edited May 18, 2014 by 63SIERRA

[Berta]

Commander John Wells, who many of us here know via hyperspace, was just on Fox News

and echoed what I posted here when the Phoenix Scandal broke......

He said these families of the deceased vets have the options of FTCA, or Section 1151 ,making the point FTCA has the two year statute of limits but 1151 claims don't. ...

'failure to diagnose and treat' is malpractice.


John is a well known voice in veterans advocacy:
https://veterans.house.gov/witness-testimony/commander-john-b-wells-usn-ret

And he is also a lawyer:

http://www.johnwellslaw.com/index-1.html

The interview at about 6:20 was very brief but John covered a few points that were important.

I think we might have had SVR shows with him on.

This was the first time I heard anyone on TV bring up the legal aspects of the latest VA scandal.

Fortunately we have a lot of good info here in the FTCA forum (that included Section 1151 info too)

Fox is staying on this scandal everyday. .

[Notorious Kelly]

1. They haven't asked for OUR stories.

2. The wait times are the same today as they were yesterday.

For all the hullabaloo, nothing is changing.

[john999]

I think Shinseki will be the next head to fall. When the team loses you fire the manager. Just because the team is rotten and the owners of the team don't give a *&&^% the thing to do is find a lamb and sacrifice it. Unless there is unrelenting pressure from the veteran community and the public the VA will return to business as usual in a few weeks.