Posted on Jan 11, 2016
IG Report: VA Botched Care of Marine Who Committed Suicide
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RP Members more bad press for the VA - We lost a Marine to Suicide! This one was very close to home here in Oceanside, CA
An internal investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs has found that the San Diego VA system botched its care of former Camp Pendleton Marine Jeremy Sears, who killed himself at an Oceanside gun range in October 2014.
After Sears' suicide at age 35, his family, friends and some veterans advocates have questioned how the VA handled his case. The combat veteran waited 16 months to hear that he would receive no disability pay after serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and being diagnosed with a brain injury.
Critics said the VA's medical and benefits divisions let Sears fall through the cracks and more could have been done to save his life.
An internal investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs has found that the San Diego VA system botched its care of former Camp Pendleton Marine Jeremy Sears, who killed himself at an Oceanside gun range in October 2014.
After Sears' suicide at age 35, his family, friends and some veterans advocates have questioned how the VA handled his case. The combat veteran waited 16 months to hear that he would receive no disability pay after serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and being diagnosed with a brain injury.
Critics said the VA's medical and benefits divisions let Sears fall through the cracks and more could have been done to save his life.
IG Report: VA Botched Care of Marine Who Committed Suicide
Posted from military.com
Marines
Suicide
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
Camp Pendleton
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 6
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RIP Marine. It sucks to see another Brother down, and nothing done to those responsible.
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Totally Sad, but not surprising. The lack of accountability (i.e. bad employees getting fired for poor job performance), in general in the Federal Government Civil Service is no where to be found in the private sector. In the VA that lack of accountability gets people killed. Meanwhile Personnel Evaluation Reports are usually written so that the underachieving or incompetent employee still meets the criteria to collect their Government Performance Bonus.
One Possible Solution:
I would like to see at least one VA center/hospital get privatized, and privately run, with no Government Civil Service Employees in the building, and see if that provides tangible competition to the Government Run VA System. The company should be set up as a Non-profit, similar to Kaiser HMO. In fact, maybe a university affiliated hospital (like UCLA which has many of their doctors also working at the West LA VA center) or Kaiser HMO here in Southern California could be the first Non-profit to completely run and staff and be accountable for the fist Privately Operated VA Hospital Center.
One Possible Solution:
I would like to see at least one VA center/hospital get privatized, and privately run, with no Government Civil Service Employees in the building, and see if that provides tangible competition to the Government Run VA System. The company should be set up as a Non-profit, similar to Kaiser HMO. In fact, maybe a university affiliated hospital (like UCLA which has many of their doctors also working at the West LA VA center) or Kaiser HMO here in Southern California could be the first Non-profit to completely run and staff and be accountable for the fist Privately Operated VA Hospital Center.
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Wow..... That's so horrible. It breaks my heart to read about stories like this. They really need to change their ways
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