AP: 6 more cases of botched cancer treatment at Pa. VA

[Heidi]

AP) – 37 minutes ago

PHILADELPHIA — Six more cases have been found of cancer patients being given incorrect radiation doses at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia.

The errors happened in a common surgical procedure to treat prostate cancer.

That brings the total to 98 veterans who were given incorrect radiation doses over a six-year period at the hospital.

The program had treated 114 cancer patients before it was halted when the problem surfaced in 2008.

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Background: At V.A. Hospital, a Rogue Cancer Unit (NYT, June 20, 2009)

[tularetom]

1. Expect a raft of VA and Medicare horror stories

As the media try to portray these government run health care programs as inefficient and inept.

It's all they have - they can't defend the shitty job private insurance does so they attack the public programs.

[ejpoeta]

2. the VA isn't being FUNDED.... of course it is going to suffer if it doesn't have enough money

to sustain itself. Now, when my dad was laying in the ICU at the hospital my brother and I got into it about the VA, because he blames the VA for my dad not getting tests he needed that may have found the cancer at the point it could have been treated. Now, there is no real way to know that, but I do know that my dad had a different doctor everytime he went in to the VA and it sounded like the people that worked there were there because perhaps they were not able to get a job elsewhere. (except the Physician's assistand that left my doctor's office to work for the VA, that is)

I let things slide with my brother for the most part when he would vent about the VA, because we were all in shock and very upset over finding out that my father had only three months to live and there was nothing much we could do about it. I don't honestly know what role the VA played in not finding my dad's cancer, but after my dad died when we talked to the doctor that did a biopsy at my dad's request told us that the cancer was so aggressive, my dad could have had it for mere months. So it's possible they would have never caught it in time. Part of me believes it considering how fast my dad went downhill... but part of me can't let go of the idea that had it been caught earlier, then he would have had a chance at least.

No one is saying systems like the VA and medicare are without their problems. The VA it seems is overtaxed and underfunded which is a big part of the problem there. No system is perfect... But the system we have now is so far past broken, that the only thing one could do is to start over, or at the very least take a program like medicare and try to fix the problems with that.... I think if everyone were in that program, it would help immensely.... and then we could work out the problems.... And the VA.... we need to be recruiting the best doctors... not the ones that can't get work elsewhere. and i am not suggesting that this is the case across the board, here... it just seems that is the case at our local VA. Our veterans DESERVE the very best. they deserve the best doctors and the best treatments.... period end of discussion.