Exceptionally long wait times, missing records and doctors who failed to diagnose serious conditions were among the complaints aired at a veteran’s town hall meeting in St. Louis Friday.
Veterans Affairs officials in St. Louis have been required to hold two forums following federal investigations of hospitals and the mishandling of veteran’s benefit claims. While providing a public venue for people to speak about their experiences with the system, representatives were also on hand to answer individual questions about benefits and vocational rehabilitation.
Vietnam veteran Chester Chunn, 70, stood up to say his medical records from 1968 were lost.
“They denied that we were exposed to Agent Orange over in Vietnam,” Chunn said. “I was there. And a bunch of other 18 and 17-year-old kids. We were there, and we bear the burden right now, today.”
About two dozen veterans and their dependents attended. Acting director of the VA’s St. Louis Regional Office, Stanton “Nick” Nickens, said he was proud of the progress his office has made since a federal audit showed one-third of a sample of 100 percent disability claims were processed inaccurately.
“We have reduced the backlog of our compensation claims, which are defined as any claim that’s over 125 days old, from 10,397 in March of 2013 to 4,569 this week, a 50 percent reduction,” Nickens said. “And we’ve done that without sacrificing quality.”
Some changes are part of the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act which was signed into law last month. It appropriates $16.3 billion for the VA system to hire additional staff, pay for veterans to seek care at private providers and other institutional changes. One line item allocates $4.2 million for the expansion of a community based outpatient clinic in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
But for Bobrie Hickmon of Maplewood, the damage is irreparable. She says her late husband James, a veteran who served in Korea, never missed an appointment at the VA Health System. But doctors failed to diagnose him with colon cancer until two weeks before he died in October of 2013.
Hickmon says she could tell her husband was sick, but doctors did not conduct further tests.
“I was telling them, about sometimes his anxiousness and urine frequency, running to the bathroom. And that was almost for two years,” Hickmon said.
The second forum will be held at 5 p.m. on September 17, at the Jefferson Barracks Campus of the VA Health Care System.
