Just in case you thought things were getting better in VA hospitals…
Video footage of a Memphis Veterans Administration hospital shows that the hospital staff regularly leave quadriplegics and paraplegics unattended.
Former Memphis VA employee and whistleblower Sean Higgins alerted CDN to the videos, which were on YouTube, asking, “Why are they leaving these veterans unattended?”
Higgins said the patients are left alone for about an hour each evening during a staff meeting that is attended by all hospital staff. Higgins said this contradicts hospital policy, and that even during such meetings, at least one nurse is supposed to be at the nurses’ station.
Three videos show that there is no staff on the floor. One video shows a patient moving around in his wheelchair throughout the entire ward.
President Obama, speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, just last month: “The safety measures now in place are some of the strongest in the nation, and patient safety is a top priority at VA hospitals — because we have to prevent anything like that from ever happening again… Veterans continue to tell us that once they get through the door, the care is often very good.”