Marion VA Hospital

[DollyM]

Did you see that the Marion VA hospital has been ordered to stop major surgical procedures because of the large amount of deaths and complications there in the past year?


MARION - An increase in deaths following certain inpatient surgeries at the Marion VA Medical Center was reported Thursday by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which also announced the reassignments of the facility's director and chief of staff and the temporary suspension of all in-patient surgeries.

A press release stated the VA has removed the director, Robert Morrel, and chief of staff, Dr. Joe Herman, from the Marion facility and assigned them to administrative positions elsewhere pending a review. An unidentified interim leader was appointed.


All I can see is that it's about time. My husband nearly lost his foot thanks to the inept medical care he received at the Marion VA. We are still going around with them over a bill they keep trying to stick us with even though we qualified for free medical care when he was in the hospital. They waited until more than a year later and then sent us a bill. Now we are "over income" (that means $35,000.00 gross with a family!)so they denied our waiver. I blame them for us having these hospital bills in the first place because they failed to correctly treat the problem. My husband was hospitalized 5 times for an infection in his foot, yes, five times in less than one year! They were too cheap to order an MRI so he kept getting passed from one Dr. to another who just kept giving him antibiotics. When they finally broke down and let him have an MRI, and see the podiatrist, he discovered the problem was an infection in the bone of his foot. The bone was taken out and the problem was resolved. Meanwhile, my husband lost more than five weeks of work, which put a serious dent in our income and eventually caused him to lose his job. His health only improved when we were able to get state medical cards through All Family/All Kids and he was able to see a local doctor and get good medical care.
The VA medical centers just need to be shut down and the Vets given medical cards to see their own Doctors in their own communities. (We had a 70 mile drive one way to the Marion VA Hospital!)