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Although gains made locally, VA has work to do in health care

We sincerely hope readers paid close attention to a long-awaited report on veterans health care that was released last week.

In stories from The Associated Press, it appears the Veterans Administration hasn’t made all that much progress following a flood of bad publicity last year on the lengthy waiting periods for service present in some VA facilities nationwide.

AP reviewed waiting times at 940 VA hospitals and outpatient clinics nationwide from Sept. 1 to Feb. 28 to gauge whether things have improved since a scandal over delays prompted federal lawmakers to pass a law last summer providing an additional $16.3 billion to hire more doctors, open more clinics and expand a program that lets veterans receive private-sector care.

The review found that, nationally, the number of delays was not getting smaller. It also found deep geographic disparities in how long vets had to wait for treatment.

Many delay-prone facilities are clustered in a handful of Southern states, while long waits were relatively rare in the Midwest, said AP.

For example, at the Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center in Iron Mountain, the region’s principal VA in-patient facility, a spokesman said things are steadily improving. Much the same story for the Marquette VA clinic, which is a satellite operation of the Iron Mountain medical center.

While we’re pleased apparent headway has been made locally, more – indeed much more – needs to be done nationally.

If we send our citizens out to fight in wars, we owe them our best when they return, especially in the area of health care.

VA officials have pledged to improve on the progress that’s been made to date.

We’ll be watching.

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