VA Secretary McDonald to Visit Ohio Hospital
CINCINNATI (AP) U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald was back in Cincinnati this weekend to lay out his plan for VA recovery.
McDonald held a town hall meeting at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center on Saturday. He has been visiting centers around the country and has had hospitals hold town meetings.
McDonald took over in July as President Barack Obama’s choice to head a beleaguered agency plagued by long veterans’ waits for health care and cases of VA workers falsifying records.
McDonald was an Army ranger and a longtime executive of the Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.
Some 3,000 audits have already been conducted on patient scheduling nationally, including Cincinnati, said McDonald.
McDonald spoke face to face with 170 staffers, emphasizing that veterans are the center of everything at the VA.
McDonald outlined his first 90-day action plan, which includes rebuilding trust with veterans and American people, improving service delivery by getting rid of the back-logs of claims and setting the course for long-term excellence.
McDonald’s plan is encouraging to veterans after the agency was rocked by coverups and long waits.
I see a lot of changes in the system, since Ive been in it. I’ve been in it for 15 plus years and this is the first time I see it going positive, said Desert Storm Veteran Jeffrey Rimsberg. He inherited a rough situation and from what I see, he’s trying to make corrections. The system is a large system there’s nothing you can do over night but he is trying to make a positive change and a positive effect.
Rimsberg is being treated at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center where McDonald talked business with staffers.
We want to make sure all of us are focused on one thing and one thing alone, and that’s caring for our veterans, said McDonald. We know that trust has been compromised and that we have to work hard to earn that trust back one veteran at a time. But the mission is clear, the mission is to serve veterans.
For new patients in Cincinnati the wait time has improved from 53 days to 34 days said McDonald and Cincinnati VA Director Linda Smith.
McDonald said improving the VAs standards also means hiring more medical staff and paying them more so they’re competitive with the private sector.
Smith said Cincinnatis VA needs an additional 238 staff members, including doctors, nurses, practitioners and health advisers.
McDonald has been going to different universities trying to recruit doctors to work at Veterans Affairs facilities. He said the department needs 28,000 more people to work in the VA.
With that additional staff we would be in a great position to meet the new 30-day requirement the VA has for seeing veterans as part of that VA Choice Act, said Smith.
Veterans are confident the hard work and new leadership will restore the agency.
That puts the government in the spotlight in a whole new perspective, they can’t just sweep it under the rug and keep going, said Rimsberg.
McDonald outlined several actions that have been taken at Cincinnati’s VA medical center to help speed up care for local veterans.
More than $4 million of the VA budget has been set aside specifically for Cincinnati veterans and staff members have also been directed to reach out to vets on a waiting list to get care.
According to reports, as of Sept. 17, more than 1,000 veterans had been reached.
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Tags: Veterans News
