Onelostdog wrote:
The VA facility in Portland is huge and located on the same campus as The Oregon Health Sciences University and the major city hospital. There is a covered walkway between the VA and OHSU as they communicate and work with each other on a daily basis. Supposedly they have the best cancer treatment center in the state if you fully trust western medicine anyway. There are some great minds and outstanding doctors in both locations I hear and yes, I still don't trust em and rely on my Naturalpathic Dr. for advice and natural treatments, she just can't do surgery's and such. Oh and I can't let the VA know she is my main practitioner or they get a serious attitude problem. I can use Veterans Choice as the main VA Hospitals are all out of the prescribed driving distance but our local hospital care sucks to be honest, they are good for splinter removal and not much else. Sorry to hear of your loss.
The VA facility in Portland is huge and located on... (
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Birmingham VA has the same deal, with UAB, which are right NEXT DOOR, and the Drs. just walk across the cat-walk to the VA, but My Husband had Colon Cancer in '09 and had to go in. They caught it early, so it was supposed to be a 3 day affair. BUT, the VA Nurses did not do their jobs, and somehow he got MRSA. in the incision, and it wound up to be a 3 MONTH nightmare with him being kept comatose, to let the 10" in diameter, gaping HOLE in his stomach heal. Where the MRSA ate away all of the meat surrounding the incision. Then he was left with a HERNIA the same size, which he just had to "live" with because they said the surgery to take it out would k**l him. He had had an EXCELLENT Dr. from UAB, but the VA was not worth a flip!!!
This last time, I took him into Montgomery VA because he could not stand up. The I***T in ER was going to send him back home because, "he could not find out what was wrong with him." I told that JERK that I was not going to take him home intil they FOUND out what his problem was, and FIXED it!!! He went and ran more tests, and came back and said " GOOD NEWS!!, Your Husband has KIDNEY FAILURE, we can keep him overnight!!!" Can you believe that? He thought I would think THAT was GOOD NEWS???
So they admitted him and then a week later they were all concerned about him choking on some food he ate. And THAT was ALL they were worried about. I told them he had done that ever since Birm. VA had him Comatose for 3 mos. with the TUBE down his throat. BUT what about his Kidney Failure? She said, "OH, we have that all under control". But a week later they sent him to Baptist Hospital, to fix their screwup. I hadn't been there for two days, because it was so far away, and I was nursing Pneumonia, that I got in their ER!! When I got down there to Baptist Hosp., His left arm was 6 times bigger than it should have been and the right one was 4 times bigger. They were HUGE. He was STILL IN KIDNEY FAILURE!! And they had quit doctoring that!! THAT is what the VA did FOR my Husband.
They said he needed Stents this last yr. I refused to send him to the Birm. VA so they set me up with Veterans Choice. The Dr. he went to was still in Birmingham but NOT a VA Hosp. NOW the VA is refusing to pay for it, even though THEY AUTHORIZED him to go to that Dr. AND that Hosp. I keep getting bills from them AND the Baptist Hosp. because the VA does not pay their bills. I was on the phone with them yesterday for 2 hours trying to get it straightened out. They just kept PASSING THE BUCK. 6 different # i had to call, and when the last one told me, "you have the wrong office for that, you will have to call this other office, I LOST it. I told that person in no uncertain terms, that I was NOT going to pay those bills and I was ALSO about two inches from SUEING THE HELL OUT OF THE VA for MURDERING my Husband!! And I don't care HOW you figure out how it is going to get paid, but it is not going to be by me!!! and I hung up!!!