Effective Immediately

On By somanyminutes

In the mail the other day, I received a letter from my VA, stating that I have a new primary care provider; effective immediatley. This is the 5th primary care provider I have had, and not ONE can even PRETEND to give a shit. My 4th provider has been moved to somewhere else in the clinic. My new provider is a male. I am so pissed. They KNOW I need a FEMALE; I have MST, and it is in my records that I need a female.

I have lost all respect for every single person that works for the VA; if they are not a whistle-blower. Especially my fellow veterans. There are so many horrendous things going on at the VA that either nobody cares about, or it is just too difficult for the public to believe we are really being treated this horribly. We are, and more people need to DO SOMETHING. Doing push-ups is  not helping us. Let’s look at the reason WHY. It goes way beyond long wait times.

16 thoughts on “Effective Immediately”

  1. bethanyk

    I am just learning, and only by reading about the completely unjust system that is the VA and am just appalled at the treatment of veterans. I am so sorry you are not getting the care or the doctor that you want.

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    1. Thankfully, we now have the Veteran’s Choice program- if our appointment with the VA is over 30 days away, OR it is too far to go, we can see a civilian. I was lucky enough to see a civilian GI doc. He LISTENED, and dx’d me(tentatively) right there. I realize the system itself is screwed, but at some point, people need to realize it is the caregivers themselves. It goes from top to bottom. I don’t like that we veterans have always been disposable. I really appreciate your concern, you are very kind.

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      1. bethanyk

        I do care and I am just appalled at the fact that you have to wait more than a week and you can’t get the doctor you want right away and that the system has screwed someone, many, thousands I am sure, who have served our country to protect us. It is an outrage to me. I am so sorry that you have not been put the highest on the list of patients to be treated for anything you’ve experienced .

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  2. Scottie

    I have been through it. I was in berlin, out with my friends, and got violently ill. None of us could figure it out, we had not drank that much, had only gone to a restaurant. They took me to the base hospital. The first doctor I saw pronounced me pregnant! I even looked into my underwear and told him I was sure I was not. He got furious with me, a lowly military e-4 and told me he was a doctor and he knew far more than I! He read me the riot act.

    Then he sent me for an ultrasound of my baby. The biggest, toughest, most muscled, shaved headed, black man I ever seen in my life came into the hall and bellowed ” Alright who the hell is screwing with me to demand an pregnancy test on a boy at this time of night”! If I had any pee in me I would have peed myself. When I tried to explain he told me..”don’t worry kid, that guy couldn’t pass the doctor’s exam in germany after five tries so the army hired him cheap. You are not the first he has done this too.” He then told me he would scan my kidneys since I was there and he had an order to scan me for a pregnancy. In the end it turned out I had a severe allergy to seafood I did not know about and I got a tiny amount off a friends plate that night.

    So the military has a history of not hiring the brightest doctors, they even hired one who thought boys could get pregnant. This would be funny if it was not true and had not happened to me. I had to try to explain the whole thing to my commanding officer. I was in the intelligence unit and he did not think much of us anyway. In the time before gays could serve openly in the military don’t you think that was some stress when my former infantry company commander came into my hospital room to ask how I got pregnant. He did not see the humor in it and was trying hard to see if he could have me out as a “gay”. However my unit came to my defence and my own warrant officer took him on. I stayed but with a bad odor with the command as they say.

    Hope my story give you some comfort. I wish you the very best. Hugs

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    1. I am sorry that happened to you. I was a Corpsman in the Navy; advanced x-ray tech. Luckily, I got a GREAT medical education there. as well as great medical care. It floors me that these “doctors” think we are all loser morons that don’t know our own bodies. If any of them really thought about it; we know our bodies the best. Lord knows we have to abuse it the most. I am so sorry that you had to go through that. Hugs back!

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      1. Scottie

        It is funny now.. was not then. I was sick and rather upset. I had a guy who had officer rank yelling at me telling me I was pregnant, and then this huge black guy ( who was totally cool ) scares the pee out of me when I was so ill… but as I said the ultrasound guy was grand, and he was not mad at me. But as an ill E-4 in underwear, I was a bit upset. Hugs

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      2. It is amazing, the treatment they get away with. We were told that we were lower than scum, while we were students. That was a lot of the reason I did not report the Chaplain. He came to my classroom the morning after the rape, apologized if he made me uncomfortable. I told him that he raped me and that was not cool. He said, and I quote, “But I am in love with you”. A fellow student was standing within earshot and told the head of our class; an E-6(I was an E-5). He told me that he was giving me two weeks to tell, or he would. So, I told and nothing happened to him. NIS(now NCIS) pulled me out of class, daily, for hours at a time for about three months. They came to the conclusion that I was not lying, and he was supposed to go to Captain’s Mast. That did not even happen. It is a wonder that any of us get out alive. It has been very nice chatting with you.

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      3. Scottie

        Sorry that happened to you. I can not go into it now, but I have written of it on my blog. I was also raped in the military, saved during it by my sergeant at the time ( he was my boyfriend and I was in his room when it happened ) and it all got swept away… never happened. Sorry I just can’t go there now. sorry. Hugs

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      4. Most people don’t realize that over 51% of MST survivors are men. My heart goes out to you. You don’t ever have to go there again. I am pretty much over talking about the details. I have 8 years of twice a week therapy and a 7 week inpatient program in Texas(which is a story I will tell, sometime). Being a survivor of MST, is like being a survivor of a POW camp; according to some therapists. Makes sense to me. God bless you. I am so happy that you have had love for so long in your life. It took me 42 years to find my true love, but I found him. He is an Army vet; a Wounded Warrior with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star- he is my hero. This man loves me for ME- not how I look(although he does love how I look). He finds it great that since my second neck surgery, if I wear heels under 4 inches, my back and neck hurt. I have not been able to wear anything with a waistband for years; so dresses it is.

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      5. Scottie

        I am very happy for both of you. He sounds grand, as you are wonderful your self. I had to step back, I was triggering, still am, crying and having trouble focusing. I think you understand. My history is well know on my blog but I simply can not go there now. I have to be up in the morning and i am almost in a state now. I have to calm down and get my nose to stop, my eyes to stop, my heart to stop pounding.. all of it, the memories to stop. You understand. We will talk more tomorrow but not tonight I simply can’t walk that memory road any more. You have my admiration for your strenght of what you are dealing with. My best wishes. Hugs

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  4. Great to see someone writing about their experiences in the healthcare centre. I think so much can be learned from our experiences – what matters most? – and yes it’s more than just wait times – and then drawing from our experiential knowledge and improving the experiences we have when we are in the system. Apparently, this is easier said than done. 🙂 Harlon

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    1. I really have no idea what will help. I have gone to my Senators, my Congressman, and nobody cares; at least about THIS veteran. It makes me feel rage at times; which I am working on. It scares me to think of how many veterans have died just from my VA area, from the Denver VA doing every single gastric emptying study INCORRECTLY.

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