Another Potential Wrongful Death?

[Berta]

"A U.S. Army vet who found out he had terminal cancer after he fought the Veterans Affairs Department in Georgia for more than a year to get a cancer check-up has died.

Norman Spivey’s delayed-treatment horror story surfaced amid a nationwide scandal of VA mismanagement that included long wait times for veterans seeking medical care and secret wait lists to hide the delays. In May, VA administrator Eric Shinseki was forced to resign amid calls for congressional hearings into the agency’s neglect."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/11/vet-who-waged-year-long-fight-with-va-for-cancer-check-up-dies-diseaser/

On the other hand this next article highlights some of the good strides VA has been attempting to make:

http://www.providencejournal.com/news/veterans/20150111-veterans-journal-after-2014-woes-veteran-s-administration-headed-in-right-direction-for-2015.ece

The VA saves countless lives of vets all the time.

Their malpractice stats (if they ever reveal the true stats) might be comparable to those of the non VA medical community.

Still, the above story to me is horrible and the spouse should take legal action.

She made some statements to FOX in this article that I wish she had not made.........would the results have been the same if he did have the colostomy much sooner????

That is really up to an IMO doctor to determine.

I sure hope this vet was autopsied and that the spouse has already obtained all of his VA med recs because this is the kind of stuff that the VA -employed MF steps in , at the RO level, to handle sometimes.

VA MF....the Mysterious Force who removes the good stuff from our c files and medical recs....if they smell 1151 or FTCA.......

I know the VA MF well.

[63SIERRA]

I think its all connected, from the IMO level docs all the way up to the comp and pension side. We have CP examiners that work in the hospital which we get treatment from, we have Regional claims office that has frequent discussions with the CP examiners. We as veterans seem to be the only ones out of the loop. Wouldnt it make sense that the CP docs are conferring with the IMO docs?

I believe that there is a list somewhere of several different conditions that the IMo docs are being pressured to avoid at all costs.

It is all going to come out.

Edited January 12, 2015 by 63SIERRA

[63SIERRA]

If you have a spinal condition, you can forget it. They dont want to find out exactly what is wrong. You can tell them all you want about your symptoms, but they will record the very least diagnostic they can come up with/ Many of the generic diagnostics were only meant for an initial diagnosis , so that further examinations could be explored. What im seeing is the IMO doc are not changing the original diagnosis, to fit the patients symptom.

Now why would they do this, even though the patient complains of symptoms that should garner a more comprehensive examination by a specialist in the field, or Technical explorations thru use of CT scans, MRI , ect.

Heres why.. Because 1, Changing the diagnostic codes to what the problem really is, would cause ALOT more comp claims to be approved

and 2, It would allow the veteran access to alot more comprehensive treatments and possibly fee based care if the VA couldnt do it.

This is my personal opinion on what I believe is going on, due to events that have occured and continue to occur to me.

[63SIERRA]

If you do a little research you will find that spinal conditions used to be one of the top conditions that vets received compensation for. If my recollection serves me, it was the second most comped condition. The statistics make sense because soldiering is one of the toughest occupations on a humans spine that there ever was. ' i guess jjust diagnosing vets with generic codes such as "back pain" and sending 90 vicodin or oxycontin a month is alot cheaper.

Now that the ugly duckiling has waddled out of the pond, the VA is trying to cut veterans off of medication in mass to try and save face.

Veterans who really need thier medications, are being denied now, unjustifiably. So once again it is the veteran who gets the shaft in the end.

The DEA needs to go see why the docs were wring these RX and were they justified. were ALL other treatment options offered? Did the IMO docs heed the veterans requests for alternative treatments , and testing before prescribing heavy narcotics? If the doctors did not follow the protocol for the standard of care, they should lose thier licenses ,. be fired, and the patient notified, so that an 1151 claim can be filed for wrong diagnosis and treatment.

The Va seems to be trying to make it seem like the veterans fault, but we are a product of the enviorment we just do what they told us to, we had trust.

Makes me wonder, were we born to suffer?

Edited January 12, 2015 by 63SIERRA

[63SIERRA]

sorry Berta was not trying to jack your post, I just get so upset with the way things are going at the VA

Sometimes I think intelligence can be a curse. Many times it would be better to just not know or be able to see the big picture of things.

Just go thru life like a horse with blinders on, and go with the flow

[Berta]

Sierra I have said to myself many times....knowledge is Power

but ignorance can be bliss.

A vet friend of mine (who VA almost killed) was in my sheep pasture one day looking at my sheep flock and he said that is what he

felt like, dealing with the VA ...like sheep being led to slaughter..........

VA exists because of the service of all of you.

And yet it has become a national disgrace.