Imagine waiting 115 days just to get into the doctor’s office. That’s the average time veterans had to wait for their first appointment with a primary-care physician in the Phoenix Veterans Affairs system, according to a report issued by the VA inspector general Wednesday. (The Phoenix VA claimed the wait time was 24 days on average.) As many as 40 vets may have died waiting for care in Phoenix and 1,700 were in limbo, left off an electronic waiting list. The report said such “inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic.” Earlier this week, a Kansas City Iraq war veteran reportedly suffering from PTSD died in a police standoff. The family of Issac Sims said he went to the local VA every day asking to be treated, but was told he would have to wait a month. A whistleblower inside a Texas VA facility told The Daily Beast’s Jacob Siegel it’s run like a “crime syndicate” with manipulation of records to assure bonuses for execs.
