The Patriot Post® · 526 Veterans Died by VA Hands From 2010 to 2014

The Department of Veterans Affairs didn’t tell Congress the truth and nothing but the truth when it released a report in April on veteran deaths due to wait times in its hospital system. So now, the Washington Free Beacon is digging into the numbers of when the VA made mistakes and veterans died. Preview: The numbers are higher than the VA would like to disclose. WFB writes, “There were a total of 1,452 ‘institutional disclosures of adverse events’ between fiscal years 2010 and 2014, 526 of which resulted in patient deaths, according to VA data obtained by the Washington Free Beacon through a Freedom of Information Act request. … In fiscal year 2012 alone, 74 patients with some form of cancer saw delays in their treatment or the initial findings were overlooked. Twelve of those veterans ultimately died from their illness. Less frequent but equally troublesome are reports of VA staff not properly screening patients at risk for suicide.” That’s much more than the 23 veterans who died because of delayed care waiting for treatment for their gastrointestinal cancers, and the VA could easily wiggle out of responsibility if a veteran was ignored because he or she was feeling suicidal. More…