Here is a list of folks I’ve been working with that have severe issues with the VA:
1. "Susie." Baker Acted 13 times 12 April 2013. This started after a botched eye surgery in February 2013 when she ended up in the emergency room hemorrhaging to the point of needing a transfusion. The doctor who did the surgery, Dr. W., was notified and showed up in the ER barking orders and pulling things from him pockets to treat her. He ordered her to be given dilaudid 59 minutes after the ER had given her morphine. Once the ER realized he did not have privileges at the hospital they told him to cease and desist and to leave. He then ordered Susie back to the Villages, where he had done surgery previously that day. The building was already locked and closed for the day and he took her into his office and locked her in with him.
She suffers from PTSD caused by being raped in basic and A-school. This sent her into a downward spiral, which caused the first Baker Act. Then the doctor was fired and the additional Baker Acts ensued. I have copies of her hospitalizations and nursing/doctors notes – over 3000 pages worth from the period of April 2013 through September 2014.
She has been Baker Acted for missing appointments, having a drink in the privacy of her own home, being intoxicated in her own home, and for ‘being tired.” They tried to Baker Act her on Friday 26 September 2014. Dr. D (Susie’s outpatient psychologist) called emergency services stating she was having a heart attack. When they came to the door, they asked if she had called and she stated that she hadn’t, she had been taking a nap. They asked if she was having a heart attack and she stated she wasn’t and they left. Shortly after that, a Gainesville Police Officer showed up and stated that has he been there when the EMS personnel were there she would have been taken to the hospital. Dr. D had told the GPD that Susie was “slightly suicidal because she wasn’t taking her meds.” They had cut her meds off the previous week. Susie had secure messaged Dr. D via Myhealthevet days before about having heart palpitations, so why didn’t Dr. D call EMS then?
On Thursday October 2, when Susie went in for a required appointment with her outpatient psychiatrist Dr. M there were VA police everywhere around the office. It was obvious to Susie that she was going to try and Baker Act her. I had come up to go to the appointment with her to be witness to it but got so deathly ill I couldn’t make it. Susie thinks the only reason she didn’t Baker Act her was because I was at her house. When the doctor asked why I was there, Susie said to protect me from you.
I am going to attach a copy of a ‘contract’ they want her to sign. It violates her constitutional and civil rights three ways from Sunday. Susie has asked repeatedly to get her mental health from private doctors and this “team” from the VA had told her that is NOT an option – that she cannot fire them. That is part of the contract they want her to sign. Make no mistake, they will find a reason to Baker Act her – whether it is legal or not, and she will disappear into the system. This case is very convoluted and is the shortest version I can give.
2. Gulf Girl just hasn’t been Baker Acted the number of times that Susie has. She has been seeing a private psychologist, Dr. F, for 18 years. All of a sudden they are demanding she that she had to be seen by them and that she can’t see an outside doctor. She was told if she did not show up for her appointment on 8 October at 1400, they would Baker Act her. Gulf Girl is stage 4, terminal, breast cancer. She told them she had a 1500 appointment with her oncologist across town and the mental health appointment was just not feasible and to reschedule it. They refused and stated she had to be at the 1400 appointment. In a letter from the Gainesville VA Hospital, dated 29 September, she receive notice of a mental health appointment for 22 November 14 at 0830. She assumed that they had rescheduled the appointment. She received a call today stating she still had the 8 October appointment. She is so terrified of being Baker Acted she is leaving the state so VA can’t find her. Her psychologist is going to the 22 November appointment with her, if they don’t Baker Act her prior to that.
3. Keith Harold Rohring – a legally blind veteran with PTSD and diabetes. He is legally blind due to a botched eye surgery performed by the VA. He was told that he does not qualify for 100% on the blindness because he is not terminally ill – an absolute outright lie. He has had to hire someone to come in a clean his home because VA has told him they have no services like that for veterans, another lie. He has osteomylitus, an infection in the bones. He had a PICC (central) line and required 3 infusions of antibiotics daily. VA tried to tell/force his hired housekeeper to do the infusions. She refused. The hospital was refusing to release him unless she agreed to do the infusions. They finally sent him home on 25 August. They sent someone named “Alicia” from Suncrest Omni to “teach” the housekeeper to do the infusions. Again, she refused. “Alicia told her “You’ll DO THIS, or else!!” VA refused to send home health care out to do the infusions and told him he would have to hire someone to come in to do them, which he did – to the tune of $205 a day, from 25 August until 15 September when he was required to go to Gainesville VA to have the PICC removed because his primary care doctor said he would develop a blood clot in the PICC that would go to his brain. So long as a PICC line is properly maintained, it can stay in for upwards of a year. Can it develop a blood clot at the end of the PICC line? Yes, but it is very easily and painlessly resolved in a matter of an hour or so and can be done in a home environment. He has had no antibiotics for his osteomylitus since 19 September. Without the antibiotics the osteomylitus, the infection will go to his heart and it will kill him. The VA has threatened to Baker Act him for not taking his meds.
On the other hand -
4. Vetwife's husband – can get no psychiatric help and he is 100% disabled PTSD. Read her diary on The Vines.
5. Dale – a 100% disabled veteran who has not been able to get home health care in for over two years – after having had it for over seven years prior – because he allegedly made an inappropriate remark to a home health care aide. His wife was always present when the aides were there. His inappropriate remark? The aide was washing his back and asked him if it was too hard. He said, “No, the harder it is it feels better,” and he has not been able to get health care in since. He has gone through his entire family coming to help out and they can no longer do it. He is 76 years old for pete’s sake.