Granted, the Veterans Administration is just a small part of the federal government and other portions work differently, I’m sure. But it has been 50 years since I was in the service and after that long a period you forget what it was like.
I arose at 4:30 a.m. to go the VA Hospital for my lab work in preparation for my visit to the doctor next week. I had been there before so I knew that you had better get there an hour before your appointment to get a parking place. They have a huge, huge parking lot but the hospital must run through at least 5,000 people per day. You have never seen such volume if you are familiar with hospitals.
The time I was supposed to be there was 8 a.m. The doors to the lab open at around 7 or 7:30 a.m. depending on when the help gets there. I have been there when the blood collecting started at 7:30 a.m. but not this morning. There was only one person behind the desk signing people in and there were about 200 waiting when I arrived. This is a light day. Other times I have seen probably 400-500 waiting in various rooms.
And we waited and we waited. Eventually one lady came out and said that only 2 medics had shown up so far this morning and would we please be patient. And we waited some more. Nobody seemed to be getting serviced. I think they must have sent out an SOS because around 9 a.m. quite a few more medics appeared. The lady that seems to run the process didn’t show until around 9 a.m. She is an organizer but since everything is so far behind by now all the other medics are trying to run the place also.
All the medics were minority and since most of the people waiting were not minority there were a lot of hateful moments. I don’t like to go to the VA Hospital because everyone there has an attitude. Just like in the military, I guess, but you think that since you aren’t military now things would be different. Not true!
The people waiting seemed to be of two groups. There were those who were upset and vocal and there was another group, I was part of this group, that was just having fun with it. We were joking about how well their system was working and proposing new systems that might help. Sort of helped us remember what it was like to be in the military. For those of you that have never experienced the military, maybe this will help enlighten you. There is a saying in the military: “Hurry up and wait.”
Now let’s apply this to the rest of the government. Nobody here knew really what was happening or cared. Nobody knew who was in charge so everyone thought they were in charge. People were going around in circles getting little done. Do you get the idea now? I’m sure Washington is a mirror image. Do you want your civilian healthcare system to look like this? If so, let the bureaucrats handle it.
