Andre Sitbon

Review of Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Af...

An important institution with many talented and ca...

An important institution with many talented and caring professionals which is unfortunately poorly managed. Some workers are stressed out from "cattle call" mentality of patient delivery. Medical documents are not properly managed either. A 90 second blood draw often takes an hour to over two and a half hours wait time. Parking fiasco is inexcusable. Health care delivery is inconsistent and ranges from excellent to having to endure medical students playing doctor and not acting professionally. The veteran client does not have a voice via an advisory committee. There is no health care manager for veteran advisory and advocacy. Complaints and patient abuse get ignored. Care is given without regard service connected issues. There is a deliberate agenda to ignore service connection to avoid claims. The hospital does not conduct periodic professional and admin committees that are published to the vet client population. For every 4 gracious persons, there is a fifth rude or unprofessional person. The facility is pretending that it can take on the current task but is obviously overwhelmed. The facade seems modern and progressive, but the reality is that the ability of the the Houston VA Hospital to deliver quality health care to veterans is sub par when compared to quality health care institutions at the medical center. The medical center should be measuring its ability to deliver health care against the VA, not the other way around. The bottom line is that it is not acceptable that the 99% cannot (will not) keep its commitment to the 1% who have served.