Hello, im ray swarez. It is an administrative perfect storm. The Vietnam Veterans are hitting their years of highest need in healthcare, just as the client rolls are coming up with hundreds of thousands of people that fought in the latest wars. Its long been known inside and outside, the vast veterans Healthcare System, that wait times for care can be long, backlogs were enormous, and it was promised over and over again, in congressional hearings that the department of vet reps affairs understood its problems. And would take care of them. And they did. Or said they did. By minute niplating dates reported between the time a vet asked for treatment and when he got it. Now congress is looking at dysfunction in the enormous Healthcare System, and summoned the cabinet secretary in charge, retired genre rick to testify. Of secret waiting lists at veteran hospitals. Many adverse incident like this makes me as makes me mad as hell, i could use stronger language, but in deference to the committ
Thank you all for coming. I want to thank our panelists for what is going to be a very important hearing. The rules will be that i will make some opening remarks, senator burr, the Ranking Member will make opening remarks, members will have three minutes, and i will keep people to three minutes because it will be a long hearing it, and that we will go to secretary shinseki, and the undersecretary. Excellent second panel and a very good third panel as well. It will be a long hearing, and we will get through it. Let me begin by just making a few basic points. Serious allegations have v. A. Personnelt in phoenix and other locations. I take these allegations seriously, as i know every member of the committee does, which is why i have supported an thependent investigation of v. A. Inspector general, and they are in phoenix doing a thorough investigation, and my hope is the report will be done as soon as possible. What i have stated and i will repeat right now, is that as soon as that report
Chairman, for holding this hearing. I certainly echoed the concerns of my colleagues and the need for structural and systemwide changes. Healthcare system is a promise that we made to americas veterans that we will take care of them in return for their service and sacrifice. The close to 10 million veterans that access care through the v. A. Systems need to trust that they are receiving high quality care when they need it, and i do note that 10 million veterans signed up for the healthcare huge here that is greater than the population of a number of states, including the state of hawaii. When we fail to provide proper care for our veterans, we not only fail them, but their families as well, and these families have also sacrifice for our nations security, and provide essential care and support for our veterans. While the immediate focus might be on the phoenix case and similar allegations regarding a hospitals,ther v. A. It is important to see what is happening systematically at the v.
I do not think any took place did the v. A. Take to respond to the memorandum that to see to it that hospital directors followed their orders . We have worked very hard to root out these inappropriate uses of the scheduling system and these abuses. We have been working continuously to try to identify where those sites are and what we need to do to prevent that from happening. It is absolutely inexcusable. The schedulers response validity is to nature that that program is administered with integrity. What do you do when you uncover one . What do you do to hold them accountable . The individuals are held accountable. I cannot give you an example of specifically, but if someone were found to be manipulating the scheduling system, they would be disciplined. Would they lose their job . I do not know whether that is the appropriate level of punishment or not. We can probably give you a little better answer to this, because youre focused on scheduling. In 2012, we involuntarily removed 3000 e
This happened this morning in oakland. Christien kafton sat down with that woman who says she filed a report with police. In videos of todays early side show, you can see the car spinning almost out of control, what you dont see is the chaos that happened. Everybody started scattering, they were going from both sides trying to get away from police. Reporter dawn says she stumbled upon the side show. She used her cell phone to video tape for about 15 minutes. As she was leaving, a car hit her while it was speeding away. The man driving the other car acted like the collision was her fault. So when he jumped out of the car he came at me like in a threatening manner. I thought he was going to do something to me. And i ducked. I dont know. But he eventually jumped in his car and he sped off. Reporter kelton works for the way out. A Youth Outreach Group and had to ask a friend for a lift. Her car still sits in the intersection where it was hit, she says its undrivable. She says something has