My most recent VA Hospital Chronicles

[oneighty]

presented as factual and in no particular order of happenings.

It was a recent early Monday morning when I was scheduled for discharge from the hospital. I am installed in a ward for three patients. We are some of the elderly Veterans supposedly more or less terminal and waiting/hoping for a bed in a near by VA nursing home. I of course am not aware that I am in that category and find myself somewhat 'out of sorts'.

I cannot eat. I cannot perform body functions. I can barely stand up. I cannot walk. I am restricted to my electric bed by ten feet of clear plastic oxygen hose. I weigh in at a startling 106 pounds. Even so I am in good (if disappointed) spirits.

A kindly nurse young, friendly, kind approaches me; "Mr. 180." she says; "Would you like to have a wheelchair equipped with oxygen?" I smile my big happy toothless smile and she knows.

Within minutes she outfits me with a handsome red wheel chair with a generous supply of oxygen in a green cylinder. She helps me get set up and she hooks up the oxygen. "I am good to go." Or so I think.

But no! No I am not. A male orderly is removing my oxygen cylinder from my wheel chair. "Why?' I ask him. "I need it more than you do." He grumbles and away he goes.

So I am reattached to my bed pondering the meaning of this experience.

I will relate more if anyone is interested.

180

[Nickster]

1. Mr. 180, I always love to hear your stories. Please continue.

I always hate thinking about VA Hospitals though, saddest places on earth that I've ever had the misfortune of being.

[Warpy]

2. Common occurrence in the VA

along with disappearing wheel chairs. They probably needed that tank, the only one on the floor with a full charge, to transfer a sick patient to a critical care unit.

The VA is underfunded and undersupplied. This always gets much worse when the GOP is in office and the Dems aren't there long enough to fix it.

We used to joke that they'd taken all our wheel chairs and melted them down for more flag poles out in front of the joint.

On edit: there is extension tubing for that oxygen, enough to get you out of that room and into the hall for some human contact. Raise hell until they bring it in and hook it up.

[Divernan]

3. A friend of mine is about to take her WWII vet husband to the VA

hospital and hopes to get him in a VA approved nursing home. He has had several strokes and falls and cannot handle his walker anymore and she is too tiny to lift him when he falls. I know the VA hospitals are underfunded, understaffed, underequipped. What's the deal on "VA nursing homes"? Are they run by the VA? Or are they regular nursing homes approved to admit vets? If they are exclusively VA for vets only, are they as underfunded, understaffed, etc., as the VA hospitals?

I'm sorry to hear you have to deal with this substandard care. You & I have talked on past threads about scuba diving, remember? I just went diving at Montserrat, which has an active volcano. The water viz wasn't the best (maybe 40-60 feet), because they'd just had a big storm come through and a lot of ash got washed into the water. But there were incredible underwater seascapes of huge, room-sized boulders from far earlier volcanic eruptions - tumbled around, forming canyons. We also went through some narrow crevices into bat caves - connected to each other via underwater tunnels. We saw some big turtles, and several rays - although all of us divers knew better than to chase them or get too close. Don't want to go off topic here, but thought you'd like to hear what the diving was like.

[Nickster]

4. Here's a bit of info.

http://www.longtermcarelink.net/eldercare/ref_state_veterans_va_nursing_homes.htm

"State veterans nursing homes are owned by the states and generally accept any veterans as long as there is bed space. The Veterans Administration subsidizes the cost of these homes by providing $59 a day for veteran residents."

[Divernan]

5. Thanks - that's a very low per diem for costs.

I see you're from Illinois. My friends are in Bourbonnais, so the Manteno home is very close by.