Oh my god how is this a problem in the modern age? Stop wasting our money on gimmicks and focus on adopting modern hospital practices.
colonoscopies with dirty equipment
led to a rash of hepatitis and HIV
Following the links the article provides:
Army veteran Thomas Mayo got a colonoscopy
after the VA insisted on it - only to learn
it may have left him with a chronic disease.
6 veterans who took the follow-up blood checks
tested positive for HIV, 34 tested positive for
hepatitis C and 13 tested positive for hepatitis B.
But there is no way to prove [blah blah blah], and
some [roll their eyes, accuse the victims of lying
and accept paychecks to play devil's advocate,
claiming maybe] the infections probably already
existed.
The modern age? 100 or even just 50 years ago hospital wards were run by "matrons", fierce and experienced nurses who ran their wards like a Sergeant Major inspected a Guards regiment, everything immaculate. That system was scrapped in favour of what we have now, a fluffy blame-free culture where no-one is responsible for anything. The problem of failing to maintain standards is entirely a "modern" one, sadly.
Could do with some stats either way.
It serves former military but it isn't military.
I still wonder why the VA isn’t part of DoD?
The actual promotion of Veterans Affairs to a cabinet-level department in 1989 was in fact driven by the perceived need to ensure that more attention was paid to the government agencies that administered benefits that at the time covered a third of all Americans. Of course, whether that works or not depends a lot on Congress's willingness to adequately fund the department and the President's willingness to prioritize the VA over any of the many other priorities they must balance.
Recruitment of docs at the VA isn't funded like recruitment in private practice, so they can't advertise as widely and can't pay for prospectives doctors' lunches (much less whiskey tastings). Credentialing now takes six months, due to the previously-mentioned high profile hirings of people without credentials. There's reasonably high satisfaction among docs actually at the high-performing VAs, but people tend to work there because they believe in the mission or don't want to deal with insurance company rationing of care, not because they want to earn lots of money.
source: family member is VA doc attempting to hire more docs to the VA. If you know internal medicine doctors who are looking for a place where evidence-based care is prioritized and insurance status isn't a factor, tell them to apply to their local VA or one of the high-performing ones they might want to move to! (https://www.va.gov/qualityofcare/measure-up/End_of_Year_Hosp...)