VA cost-saving efforts can have devastating effect

To the editor:

Recent news-media attention on the events at the Kansas City VA Medical Center has brought the Department of Veterans Affairs another crisis of negative publicity.

Finding maggots in patients' noses appears to be a simple case of horrible patient care. This is not a case of poor patient care. It is the outcome of years of under-funding the department.

VA hospitals have slowly been strangled by flat-line budgets, forcing cutbacks. In the case of the Kansas City center, the administration made a decision to subcontract food services as a cost-saving measure. The subcontractor failed to hire workers to maintain the food-storage area. This resulted in an infestation of mice. To address the mice, management again hired an outside contractor to kill the mice, which died in inaccessible areas. Flies were drawn to the dead mice. Flies that were trapped in the intensive-care unit laid eggs in the noses and mouths of patients. When discovered, they were promptly removed.

At the VA medical center in Poplar Bluff, the director has implemented a plan to replace registered nurses with licensed practical nurses in some areas as a cost-saving measure. This change has been implemented without regard to the strenuous objection of the union that represents affected employees. The decision in Kansas City also was made over union objections.

Let's hope that the veterans of Southeast Missouri do not have to suffer a similar tragedy.

LUANN BRUMLEY

President

American Federation

of Government Employees Local 2338

John J. Pershing VA Medical Center

Poplar Bluff, Mo.