April 3, 2011
Gen. Eric K. Shinseki (USA Ret.)
Secretary, Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Secretary:
Why is it that any person can randomly walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the USA and be pleasantly greeted by a lowly-educated, minimum-wage employee who can take an order that is almost immediately fulfilled by another lowly-educated and minimum-wage employee, but when a Veteran has a three-weeks-in-advance appointment at the VA Greater West Los Angeles Healthcare System and shows up prior to the appointment, he or she cannot be treated by a highly educated and well-paid medical staff without waiting for hours?
The answer is simple; McDonald's is professionally managed. The West Los Angeles VA is terribly mismanaged.
Three weeks ago I called the Dermatology department at the West L.A. VA for an appointment because I noticed a dark spot on my scalp and I was concerned it could be cancerous. The earliest appointment was three weeks away, at 2:45 on a Friday. Past experience forewarned me that the time of day and the day of the week were not a good option, but I needed the earliest available appointment and this was it.
On Friday, I showed up five minutes early for my appointment, checked in and was told to take a seat in an over-crowded waiting room. The only available seat was three feet away from a loud TV. Eventually, I chose to stand in the hallway rather than sit in this extremely uncomfortable arrangement.
It was there that I was able to witness the lackadaisical, slipshod manner of the medical staff that Veterans were waiting to see. I noticed two doctors in long white coats; one was older, pacing back and fort in the hallway doing seemingly nothing. Another was on his Blackberry texting; he left, came back, did more texting and left again. I never saw either of these two treating patients. There was a younger woman in a shorter white jacket who took a couple of patients and then disappeared for a long period of time in her office with two other women staff members. A young man with no semblance of medical attire saw a couple of patients but spent a good deal of time going in and about his office and chit-chatting in the hallway with other staff members. Another woman in a longer white jacket took a patient into her office. That was about it for nearly an hour. There was a lot of mingling about in the hallway by the medical staff, but they made very rare appearances in the waiting room to treat Veteran patients.
With the time pushing 4 o’clock, doctors appeared to be leaving. Yet numerous Veterans were waiting to see a doctor. Since I was one of the last patients to check in, I asked the receptionist how long it would be before I would be seen and he had no idea. I then asked about rescheduling as I had another meeting to attend at 4:30. More importantly, I didn't want to be the last person to be seen with a haphazard, rushed examination, instead of getting a serious diagnosis.
The receptionist could not reschedule me for any time sooner than a couple of weeks away, around the same late afternoon time. No morning appointments were available throughout the entire month of April, only late afternoon appointments and several weeks in advance, so I still not do not have an appointment. No better off than I was three weeks ago.
I was going to write this report to you on Friday, but I slept on it. Saturday, the silent voice was shouting to write. I still put it aside. This morning the shouting voice was now screaming that this kind of abusive and neglectful service affects every one of my fellow Veterans and that my complaint isn't on my behalf, but on behalf of all the other Veterans who suffer this same abusive mistreatment at the West L.A. VA.
Monday I will be 69. I saw Veterans 10 to 15 years my senior sitting in the waiting room before I got there. They still were there waiting when I made my investigation with the receptionist.
Why can't the VA be open on Saturdays and Sundays for doctor appointments if you cannot properly accommodate Veterans Monday through Friday? I've lost three valuable weeks that could have been used toward more professional treatment elsewhere had I known that I would've been subjected to such neglect and possible rushed examination and analysis.
Something tells me that nothing will be resolved in this matter other than a sign saying that Veterans are not allowed to stand in the hallway so that business as usual will continue.
It is simply stunning that you have turned a blind eye and deaf ear to all that we have been complaining to you about at the West Los Angeles VA since you accepted President Obama's appointment more than two years ago.
Your General Counsel, Will Gunn, dismissed the Annenberg report on the Deed of 1888 as irrelevant because the West L.A. VA bureaucrats claim they're responsibility is to run a hospital / healthcare system, not a Home.
Mr. Secretary, they run neither!
The West L.A. VA is a real estate brokerage firm that operates without a bona fide realtor's license while seriously violating a public charitable trust. This is criminal.
Twenty thousand homeless Veterans have been exiled and dispossessed and Veterans who need medical treatment are being abused and neglected. Third-world dictators treat their people better than America's Veterans are being treated.
I got more attention from the VA police for hanging the U.S. Flag in “distress” outside the VA than I got with a three-weeks-in-advance appointment to see a dermatologist inside the VA.
The UCLA golf team gets more attention from Donna Beiter and Ralph Tillman to permanently take over the Veterans’ golf course than the Vietnam Veterans of America Service Organization gets for a permit to hold an afternoon “Veterans Summer Celebration” on the Grand Lawn.
Sue Young can stop in your office in D.C. to see you quicker than any Veteran can get an appointment to see a doctor at the West L.A. VA. She is given more preferential treatment for her “want” of Veterans land than Veterans are given healthcare treatment for their medical and shelter “needs.”
For more than two years, we have consistently informed you about all that is wrong with the West L.A. VA. Never once have you responded or extended an invitation to meet with us or talk with us. Not once! Instead, things only have gotten worse under your watch.
This weekend marked our 159th consecutive Sunday Rally. We Veterans in our 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s do not spend our afternoons protesting the serious malfeasance and mismanagement at the largest VA in the nation because we have nothing better to do.
No, Mr. Secretary, it's because there is absolutely nothing more important than this.
Once again, this is to respectfully request that you take a serious leadership role and replace Donna Beiter, Ralph Tillman, William Daniels, Ronald Mathis, Jenelle Happy and others posthaste.
The call is yours: Either clean house, continue with the same malfeasance, or resign.
Or as Gen. Patton wisely proffered: “Either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!”
Sincerely,
Robert L. Rosebrock
Mr. Rosebrock, a Vietnam Era Veteran, may be contacted at RRosebrock1@aol.com
