TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs is something veterans earn with their service but the VA is often criticized for the way it serves veterans.
Monday the VA Secretary was in Tucson, saying he’s reducing bureaucracy to focus more on veterans and their needs.
The big VA Hospital in Tucson and the others like it are an expression of a bargain, and a promise: sign up to risk your life for our country, and our country will take care of you when your military career is over but there are always continuing questions over just how well the VA takes care of its vets
VA Secretary Doug Collins toured an Oro Valley VA clinic with Congressman Juan Ciscomani.
Later he took questions from an invited panel of veterans who are business and government leaders in civilian life.
We asked the Secretary about a veteran who told us since a wave of cuts last year he’s had trouble getting appointments with his primary care doctor and his mental health counselor.
Collins says he’d want to look at the specifics of that case. He says the VA worked to hold onto professionals who actually work with patients.
“Last year, we had about 30,000 who took early retirement. We had protected over 300,000 positions in our VHA. So we kept our doctors, we kept our nurses, we kept those folks. Now if people leave, we do have that happen, just like any other place in other hospitals, but we are also hiring every day and making sure that we have the staff and everything we need.”
Dan Jackson with Disabled American Veterans and Al Young with the American Legion help veterans get the care they need and they use the VA for their own medical care.
Dan Jackson says, “The system works. Everybody who knows about the system and uses the system is pretty happy with it. The ones who bad mouth it are the ones that don’t know.”
Al Young says for him the staff changes did include a change in his primary care providers.
“Even though I have a second primary care provider, they’re just as good as the first one that I saw.”
Secretary Collins says as the largest health system in the country the VA has the same challenges as private health care which has its own problems with staff turnover and long waits for service.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
