VA still hurting veterans – watchdog report finds ‘unnecessary anesthesia,’ dirty syringes

What happened?

The latest report on the Veterans Administration reveals that “failed leadership” hasn’t fixed problems for veterans seeking health care.

A 150-page watchdog report found that current VA Secretary David Shulkin, who also served as VA undersecretary of health under the Obama administration from 2015 to 2016, has done nothing to fix a host of problems at the Washington, D.C. medical center.

While no patient has died from mistreatment, patients at the Washington center endured “costly hospitalizations, ‘prolonged or unnecessary anesthesia’ while medical staff scrambled to find needed equipment at the last minute as well as delays and cancellations of medical procedures,” according to the Associated Press.

Remind me:

The VA has been under fire for years. Report after report has found that veterans are waiting unreasonably long amounts of time to see a doctor; undergoing botched medical procedures; being mistreated in filthy hospital conditions; and even dying while awaiting care.

What else should I know?

Shulkin is in trouble for other reasons. The secretary has been struggling to recover after the inspector general found last month that he violated ethics rules by inappropriately accepting tickets to Wimbledon and using $4,000 in taxpayer funds to cover his wife’s plane ticket.

Doc’s take:

Government agencies screw up a lot and they waste our money. But the VA stands out because they’re actually hurting and killing veterans. When will the Trump administration take real action to fix these problems?

“This has gone on year after year after year. President Trump, where are you now?” Doc asked on today’s show. “What have you done to clean it up?”

To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6 a.m. – 9 a.m. ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.