Secretary Wilkie: We must bind our wounds

This is the disaster that has become the VA. And the bottom line is that nobody cares. I thought that Trump actually was trying to help veterans and then experience this as a signature accomplishment. Just another bureaucracy sending veterans in circles. This is simply a brief summary of the horrible treatment in Trumps Veteran hotline.

Called back to follow up with this issue and encountered two representatives who were rude by the name of “Rene” and “Eileen”. Since my initial experiences with the VA had resulted in no changes while the pattern continued and the people who were to investigate my complaints were arguing that the technical definition of medical malpractice was the standard operating procedure of the VA even continuing to argue such an absurd premise when I told him I was nurse it was clear that NOTHING would be investigated through this channel for obvious reasons. I won’t go into detail but the terms incompetent and dangerous would both be appropriate. How many other veterans walked away thinking that this is how medicine is practiced. So much for my “concerns or complaints” not being “valid”

The people manning this call center seemed to not be representing the stated mission with the intentional runaround that began on this day, which is continuing to this moment, in real time. What I am experiencing is in outright defiance to the directions Trump gave when he stood in that very call center. So either Trump was lying or Wilkie decided he would simply create another layer of bureaucracy, and walk away, which is exactly what happened.

On June 11th, I was told that this case was closed and that it was documented as “service recovery complete”. Part of my complaint was that I wanted to speak with the manager as well as an explanation of why the manager was unwilling to speak with clients when it was Trump’s intention that he himself would get involved if necessary. I’m not sure Trump made that statement with the understanding that managers in this call center would be refusing to speak with clients. I doubt it. Nobody contacted me with any resolution. None of the questions I had were answered or addressed, in addition the same two employees I had complained about, that day, engaged in the exact same behavior when I called again after the case was “resolved” and service recovery complete. Even after my telling them I had complained about their previous conduct they engaged in this behavior again. They didn’t do this because my issues were addressed or the VA takes our concerns seriously, they did it because they know there will be no consequences.

At this point the manager is not doing their job, and reaching out to hear my concerns about their call center would have stopped this from escalating any further. Instead I was forced to call repeatedly as the call center made every effort to frustrate and obstruct my ability to achieve a resolution. This manager is engaging in a classic power struggle wasting the time, energy and resources of the organization leaving other veterans sitting on hold waiting for assistance as the staff are forced to field multiple valid complaints about the call center itself. The manager doesn’t want to address them because they are part of the problem. This would constitute “waste” as it’s defined by the US Government and it borders on qualifying as “abuse” as well. If the VA signed a contract with a call center allowing the manager the refusal to speak with clients then either the person who signed that contract didn’t care about Trump’s directive or Trump wasn’t serious about it. Possibly both, but at the very least, one or the other. There are other issues related to the negligent care I received that need to be addressed but I’m certainly not going to waste my time pursuing that within the framework of this already broken system. I will further those complaints when I am assured the system has credibility. Right now it has none, and I’m going to further spin my wheels by repeatedly engaging a broken system that other people may not have the stamina or understanding of how to pursue getting problems addressed. So let’s fix that first. Instead of picking people up individually as they scream the loudest how about we remove the roadblock so that traffic can flow freely.

Multiple complaints not logged in this time period There were 7 calls that were never filed.

June 8.
Another complaint was logged. There were 7 additional complaints of other problems since the last one that the workers chose to not document or file trying to find ways to say they were duplicate complaints, which they were not. I’m told there is an investigation going on yet nobody has reached out to me from any credible investigating body to obtain one bit of information. I explained that you can’t investigate something without first hearing the complaint and I also pointed out at this time that focusing on the issues that resulted in my initial bad experiences that have already been reported through other means will not qualify as having investigated “anything” as that wasn’t, and continues to not be, my actual complaint. This is another reason why nobody is contacting me. People don’t want my concerns going up the chain of command so they are trying to create obstacles. Then if it ends up in the media Wilkie and Trump can complain they had no idea. Plausible deniability. The bottom line is there still is not an investigation into my complaint merely that they are focusing on other things to avoid addressing them. I’ve dealt with this before and It’s not going to hinder or distract me from pursuing this until these people are held accountable.

June 10th.
Only one case actually documented. Hotline complaint, Status of prior complaints “in progress” On this day I spoke to both of the agents I had previously had problems with, “Rene” and “Sam”. Same experience, Argumentative, talking over me and rude. In fact Sam was no antagonistic that I found that at one point I was screaming. I stepped back and realized this man shouldn’t be on these calls with anyone. He is going to push someone with emotional problems over the edge. I am a nurse, I was the Director of a Psychiatric Assessment and Referral center in Philadelphia. This is my field of expertise. There is no question in my mind that these experiences are the number one, easily fixable, mitigating factor that results in a nearly double suicide rate among veterans. I have fairly good coping skills. Not everyone reaching out for help in frustration is going to take this as far as I have to get something resolved. I called back and let the supervisors know my observations and “professional expert opinion”. No problem, he answered the call again an hour later. I hung up at that point. My credentials and background are easily verified.

On this day I had two additional complaints that were not documented. I was disconnected 4 times in a row before an agent got on the line and without a second of hesitation immediately responded to my request to speak to a supervisor, “no supervisor or manager is available right now”. If they want to set the staff up to simply create obstacles they need to coach them to pause for a moment to make it look as if they checked. Not to blurt it out immediately.

June 11th.
Called again asking why my issues have not been resolved, why nobody has contacted me and why complaints are not being addressed.
I spoke with a “supervisor” named “Andrew” that I had spoken to and who had hung up on me the previous day. I explained to him immediately that I didn’t want to speak to him since I had filed a complaint about his conduct the day before. I explained that I wanted to speak with someone else at which time he started talking over me argumentatively and then hung up on me. I called back and got transferred to him a second time in spite of stating I did not want to speak to him before the call was transferred. The second time I started to tell him the same thing. This time he snapped, “I can’t transfer you to another supervisor” at which time I explained that he should have said that to me the first time instead of trying to interrupt, talk over, and then hanging up on me. As a former CPI (Crisis Prevention Institute) instructor, it is simply remarkable to me how poorly trained these people are and this is a supervisor. To this response he hung up on me again. These calls are all recorded.

I called back after being hung up on and again asked to speak to a supervisor. I was put on hold. I had never waited for more than a couple of minutes to get through to a supervisor prior so after 34 minutes of being on hold I simply called back on my second line leaving the first on hold. This time I was answered by someone in training who didn’t know how to properly mute the call to me when having dialogue with the trainer. I couldn’t hear the trainer but I could here the trainee. This time I was on hold for 14 minutes and then was put through to a supervisor. The trainee revealed in talking with the trainer that she was concerned about leaving me on hold because it’s the policy of the call center to check back. When I stated I could hear her conversion and that I was very aware of what they were doing a supervisor suddenly became available. I was told that the calls are taken in the order they are received yet my second call went to the supervisor and the other line that had called in much sooner was still on hold. Not only that but the “hold” music was different than the hold music was on the call that was transferred. Strange for a small self contained call center. Or is it that they parked the call in another location that bypasses the feature which forces the call to bump back if it sits on hold too long? The assessment center I ran was also a call center. I was the Director. I know all of these games. In addition not once did someone pick up the other call and acknowledge my over 40 minutes on hold before I finally disconnected it. As revealed by the trainee a direct violation of their own policy.

Trump stated that if a veteran has a valid issue that is not getting addressed that he wants that issue brought to him. He stood in that very call center and made that statement. I can’t even get a manager to address some fairly serious issues. I don’t want to be pushed through to get this resolved. I am hoping that by any means I can be given the ability either directly, or by proxy to call Mr. Trump out about this key issue that he campaigned on. This is NOT political nor am I making it political, but between the care I received in the VA and the absolute nightmare this entire experience has turned into I expect my concerns to be addressed. I voted for Mr. Trump. I will not vote for him again after this. As for my credibility. I am a nurse, I was a 9/11 first responder, I lost my job as a whistleblower reporting a hospital in California for egregious neglect of minority patients. Not hitching on to the current climate either, It was a founded report, I lost my job 18 months ago trying to get justice for the people who were impacted, The State did a bogus investigation when another nurse reported it and they all covered it up. I’m still unemployed, can’t find work, and nobody in the entire state had any interest in helping me over that issue. I won’t even mention what a slap in the face that was to see Gavin Newsom kneeling when his office ignored 13 phone calls begging for help. Even after speaking to someone, who didn’t care, the response was to label me a crackpot and block my number so I couldn’t call. There were apparently no cameras rolling and that entire mess may still end up in the media. But that situation and the loss of my job is what led to my reaching out to the VA who certainly did a good job of finishing me off. I will NEVER recover from this in my life. Coming forward on the first issue cost my job, my savings, everything. I had to declare bankruptcy because I couldn’t pay my bills. So now I’m pretty much hoping that maybe someone else won’t have their life destroyed like mine was. That’s all. I don’t even receive services through the VA, Don’t want to, and apparently I’m no longer eligible. So I have nothing to actually gain from pursuing this, hoping someone else’s life isn’t destroyed like mine was.

As for being a whistleblower I would discourage others from coming forward unfortunately. There is no support for you from the very people who claim they want to improve the systems and make things better. When Nurses start and actually are overwhelmingly turning a blind eye to egregiously bad care there is no hope to improve the system. I was told by every single nurse to shut my mouth and look the other way. I tried so hard to get something done and was met with nothing but resistance. So nothing changes and people should be very concerned. Because someday it may be your son, daughter, mother, sister, etc that ends up dying from something preventable that was never addressed because healthcare workers see what happens when people come forward. And like every other attempt to get help with anything I’m assuming that none of this will actually get addressed or resolved anyway.

But I’m going through the motions and I will keep trying to get the entire story out in the media to expose what is going on. My background and credentials give me a unique perspective that I think should be heard and might be useful but nobody is interested. Just like nobody is interested in actually helping veterans or improving things, We just keep talking while we ignore the White Elephant in the room that just keeps getting bigger.

I can go on and I can certainly fill in the blanks because there is much more. The sad part is this isn’t that hard to fix. It’s not the middle east conflict. There is simply a lack of will. Unfortunately as someone who did support Trump. My commitment and loyalty has to be to my fellow veterans first and you don’t get to use veterans as a campaign issue and then not deliver. There is a shelf life on this however because although I will go forward at any time I’m likely going to be losing my housing, and this time there doesn’t seem to be any way for me to avoid it. I’m not asking for assistance there, I’ve already tried and apparently I don’t meet the requirements of qualifying for anything until I’ve lost everything so there isn’t any point because once I’ve lost everything I’ll never recover. This is also why the homeless problem is out of control. The actual assistance is too little too late so I’m going to be a statistic. Reaching out for public assistance was an experience similar to or worse than the VA.

This is the basic outline. Hopefully someone will do something about this before more people simply give up before making it to this point. It’s really a national shame the way our veterans are treated. What’s also interested is that in a moment of anger I described the two female agents in my complaint as “those bitches in the call center”. I also made it clear that my complaint was about the president’s VA hotline. Yet the complaint was forwarded to the Woman’s Call Center. Not only is this actually a perfect example of the institutional sexism within the system but it demonstrates without any doubt that the complaints are not even read. If they had read the complaint I was clear about the call center. They didn’t read it, they glanced at it, saw the word “bitches” ‘ and assumed it was the woman’s call center. It’s simply remarkable. I also followed up with the Congressional Liaison Office for the VA, I emailed Wilkie’s office directly of which the first he responded to and then ignored the next 10 and only responded again when he thought the media was involved and initiated the “investigation” that is being conducted without anyone reaching out to get the facts. These people should not be in these positions. I also reached over 18 times to the White House through their “contact the president” I have called him out repeatedly and even called him out as a liar over this issue and I simply get form letter responses.