Team Effort

This is a highly misleading article. I am also a Vet and have been treated better @ the VA than anywhere else. What I really see in your article is that VETs should be seen @ MGH at taxpayers’ expense. Care at a non-VA hosp is going to be higher. Of course if VA paid for it, the private hospitals wouldn’t be in so much red-ink!

Mr. Kix, you should be ashamed. Is there a reason no interviews were completed with more veterans or VA employees? Perhaps a deadline was the reason for this poorly researched article.

i can only assume that Mr. Kix never served a purpose greater than his own self-indulgent needs. as a vet, i have given so much to this country, my father did too, as well as my grandfather. to read such slanted, half-truths about the only organization established to help those that served is heart breaking. i have not always received quick appts. or been treated like a king while at the VA but i know that the soul of that oragnization deeply cares about me and is honored to assist me with my medical needs.

if one of my recently returned brothers (or sisters) reads this article and decides the VA can’t or won’t help them… if he/she does the unthinkable becuase they feel the one place that is meant to help – won’t… their death will be on your conscious. you owe us veteran an apology.

Where did you get your journalism degree, online? Most people, even the enquirer, check things out before they print them. Sounds like you had a beef with someone at the VA and are making up lies to suit yourself. I have several relatives that have been seen their and all of them have nothing but praise. Did you let the readers know that the IG report was from 2007, didn’t think so. The VA is a nice, caring place to be but you wouldn’t know that because you don’t know how to research, you just take one persons word for it. You are a disgrace to journalism.

Where did you get your journalism degree, online? Most people, even the enquirer, check things out before they print them. Sounds like you had a beef with someone at the VA and are making up lies to suit yourself. I have several relatives that have been seen their and all of them have nothing but praise. Did you let the readers know that the IG report was from 2007, didn’t think so. The VA is a nice, caring place to be but you wouldn’t know that because you don’t know how to research, you just take one persons word for it. You are a disgrace to journalism.

Where did you get your journalism degree, online? Most people, even the enquirer, check things out before they print them. Sounds like you had a beef with someone at the VA and are making up lies to suit yourself. I have several relatives that have been seen their and all of them have nothing but praise. Did you let the readers know that the IG report was from 2007, didn’t think so. The VA is a nice, caring place to be but you wouldn’t know that because you don’t know how to research, you just take one persons word for it. You are a disgrace to journalism.

Where did you get your journalism degree, online? Most people, even the enquirer, check things out before they print them. Sounds like you had a beef with someone at the VA and are making up lies to suit yourself. I have several relatives that have been seen their and all of them have nothing but praise. Did you let the readers know that the IG report was from 2007, didn’t think so. The VA is a nice, caring place to be but you wouldn’t know that because you don’t know how to research, you just take one persons word for it. You are a disgrace to journalism.

When an article refers to Mass General readers understand the scope but when an article refers to THE VA – all facilties nationwide are included. An employee is cited not the thousands of others who beleive in the mission of caring for those who have borne the battle. In the article, Home Based care started after a visit to Walter Reed which IS NOT a VA facility – it is a military hospital. Was that point too difficult to research?? The VA has been a player in the Home Based program since the beginning. I except better reporting from Boston Magazine.

It appears that you never took statistics since there is no evidence of the level of confidence, correlation of confidence,local population sample that you state in the adverse data in your article. I have had superior care at the VA at west Roxbury. They saved my life when I had viral encephalitis by correctly diagnosing it and treating it. I found the care superior to my private health care.I got several of my veteran friends to enroll and they said that their experience was superior as well. You shoud not pick and choose data or personnel for your stories without doing some sort of some blind randomized survey of veterans who use the local VAMC’s.

It appears that you never took statistics since there is no evidence of the level of confidence, correlation of confidence,local population sample that you state in the adverse data in your article. I have had superior care at the VA at west Roxbury. They saved my life when I had viral encephalitis by correctly diagnosing it and treating it. I found the care superior to my private health care.I got several of my veteran friends to enroll and they said that their experience was superior as well. You shoud not pick and choose data or personnel for your stories without doing some sort of some blind randomized survey of veterans who use the local VAMC’s.

What a poor piece of journalism. First of all the facts seem higly misconstrued – in 10 years of wokring at the VA an advocate helped 500 veterans, all of which did not think highly of the VA? What is the likelihood of that sample? And only 500 out of over 60,000 veteran’s in the system? This alone causes me to question the validity of the entire article. And the wait times? Really? I personally receive care at one of Boston’s major well respected hospital’s and rarely have I ever gotten to see my own PCP or specialist within 30 days. Overall, a truly disappointing article. I hope to see a more fair and better researched article regarding the VA published soon – our veteran’s deserve that.

I’m a combat veteran and employee. And they treat both like cattle. The student Dr’s don’t care about us Vet and the higher muckies are so out of touch, they believe their own stats that they create. I would take dog to the VA.

In a world where medical practice is increasingly dictated by reimbursement contingencies, the VA is one of the last settings in which the quality of care and the needs of the patients override all else. This reporter’s motives are suspect; at best, the article reflects incompetence.

I agree, just be reading the responses here, it’s the VA administration on TAXPAYERS TIME responding to thier guilt. You can read thru the lines the idiots from West Roxbury. And for the director that employyes call OZ (wizard of OZ) no one see or hears from him, except the respond to this factual article.

This article represents a brief snap shot of the VA and it does not capture the whole picture. I am a 10 year Army veteran who receives all my care from the VA Boston system while there are some issu

I’n bewildered by most of the responses to this article. The author’s thesis is that there are large gaps in the continuity of services received by veterans through the VA. He then describes several particular examples supporting his assertion, identifying and quoting vets at the center of these case studies, and reports how private entities have emerged to fill the void. Seems pretty straightforward and normative as short investigative pieces go. I can’t help but feel as do others -given the disproportionate and misdirected responses – that many of the posters are pursuing an agenda that has more to do with protecting the VA than it does with addressing the current crisis in services for vets. Also, I must add that I know Ms. Matthews, who has seen “only” 500 veterans over the past decade. What should have been made clear is that Ms. Matthews advocates for veterans as a patriotic calling, doing so on her own time and at her own expense. Typically, her veteran clients describe her as the help they have been in dire need of for years, and that it is only after her advocacy that they begin…

I came home from Iraq with what felt liek a broken bak. Went to Va who just gave me pills. After I went back I finally got an X-ray, they said I had a strained back. Five months later, I landed in the Cape Cod Emergency room, the Doc got me an MRI finally. He said the VA had been tretaing me for a condition that they did not even know I had. Thanks for the great article, good to know about the Red Sox program. Anyone who hates this article must work for the VA All my buddies have similatr VA stories

my husband finnally got some help Thanks to Peggy Matthews.My husband has only gotten help Because of Peggy Matthews.One day Peggy Matthews came in to his life and because of her he was able to introduce and refer many of his Vet frinds to her and she is in the process of helping them also.
We were trying to receive help from all kinds of people even rhe veteran in the Center of our town,to no avail.
Now that we found Peggy , He has finally got some where and we could not have done this with out her help.She has not taken any money for the help and I know she has put in long hours working on this for him. We are very greatfull for the help she has given us.

While it’s an unfortunate generalization that Ms. Matthews said, “All the vets hate the VA”–clearly most of the responses to Paul Kix’s article indicate otherwise!–it should be kept in
mind that 100% of those contacting Ms. Matthews were discouraged and exasperated with their efforts to procure satisfactory medical care. In other words, she–an unpaid advocate–was their last resort! Also, if one reads carefully, the article says that the biggest complaint was around bureaucracy and paperwork, which many vets simple couldn’t wend their way through. Who hasn’t been brought to his or her knees when trying to navigate any administrative system? And, of course, the paper work is just the first of many steps toward medical treatment. Ms. Matthews is just good at it. So no wonder she’s sought after!

And to Paul Kix’s credit he took on a giant: the VA. Even if his research might’ve benefitted from being more balanced with documented patient satisfaction input and more up-to-date data on, say, that Class Action suit, he has had the nerve to poke a a stick at what some consider a hornet’s nest. The…

I have had similar issues with the VA myself…