VA problems are in most hospitals

Nurses Activism

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The National Patient Safety Foundation made this shocking admissions last year: "psychological safety of the workforce... conspicuously absent or considered optional in many care-delivery organizations..Under these conditions, it is difficult for caregivers to to meet the challenge of making health care safe for patients they serve...makes it clear that the manager, or person in the gradient of hierarchy above the worker, possesses interests that are more important than the planned efforts of the health care worker."

Arizona Republic description:

" workers who asked not to be named because they fear retribution...current and former staffers allege that employees who point out flaws-or try to improve the system from within-are bullied by bosses who won't acknowledge the system is broken because to do so would damage their careers. Retaliation against whistle-blowers, discrimination and mismanagement have caused an exodus of nurses and doctors, insiders said, so that remaining employees are chronically overworked and stressed out."

Does any of this sound familiar?

Specializes in Critical Care.
"In November 2013, he walked into the Memphis VA Medical Center complaining of chest pains. After waiting several hours in the emergency room with no help, Blakely left and was treated at nearby Methodist Hospital.

Blakely said Methodist Hospital ran several tests as part of his treatment, but his follow-up appointment at the Memphis VA Medical Center didn’t occur until the beginning of June — more than six months later."

Again, I think you're conflating chest pain with a STEMI patient. If he was a STEMI he would have been sent to Methodist anyway since the VA hospital isn't a STEMI center (which would explain why you've never seen STEMI patients sent emergently to the cath lab at the Memphis VA. Even at the best heart attack care hospitals, if you're initially ruled out for a STEMI and are deemed a "soft" rule out for NSTEMI, you're going to wait a while.

Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.
Access to healthcare had been an issue for DECADES; rather it be the VA, a non-profit, or a for-profit hospital; it's getting attention now because it's affecting our soldiers as well as the ACA, but where was the press and the dialogue when the Healthy People 2000, 2010, when there continued to stress the disparities and lack of access to healthcare? Is it finally going to get address by the current goals of Healthy People 2020, where health disparities and access to healthcare is STILL on the goals to be addressed... is it going to be addressed, or ignored?

This exactly. I have an aunt who worked for the VA in Ann Arbor,Mi. They are always in need of physicians. Too many patients and not enough physicians. Same as the standard medical system. Unless you are an established patient you will have a hard time getting in promptly. Heck as an employee of a large health system I have had to wait sometimes over a month to get into a specialty.

This not just a VA specific issue.

Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

Chair of Veterans Affairs for NNU Irma Westmoreland, RN Talks About The VA on Nurse Talk Radio

Nurse Talk Radio, 6/24/14

http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/rn-chair-of-veterans-affairs-for-nnu-irma-westmoreland-talks-about-the-va/

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