Congress Still Not Doing Their Jobs for Veterans and It Shows

REPEAT AFTER ME
THE JOB OF CONGRESS IS TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS! They have committees in the House and subcommittees. They also have them in the Senate. For them to not know what has been going on means they WERE NOT DOING THEIR JOBS~

VA didn't track vacant medical jobs until this year
AZ Central
The Republic
Paul Giblin
November 16, 2014

The Department of Veterans Affairs' record-keeping processes were in such disarray in recent years that the agency didn't track its number of unfilled medical positions until June of this year, according to VA officials.

The VA's lax record-keeping occurred against a backdrop of year-over-year funding increases while VA administrators created secret lists of patients who languished for months waiting for medical appointments.

The disclosure came in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Arizona Republic seeking the number of medical vacancies nationally and at the three VA hospitals in Arizona.

Four months after the newspaper requested vacancy statistics dating back to 2010, Veterans Health Administration FOIA Officer Barbara Swailes responded that the information was unavailable.

"The VHA Central Office did not start collecting vacancy information until June 2014," she wrote in a letter earlier this month. The newspaper requested the information in July.

The VA started collecting the data only after a wide-ranging scandal involving the VA became the focus of national attention following congressional hearings and media coverage by The Republic and other news outlets.

Earlier this month, the VA released to The Republic records showing that on a national basis, the number of unfilled medical positions hit 31,006 on July 15, 2014. In Arizona, it was 997.

U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said she was unaware of the number until told by The Republic on Friday.

"Oh, my God. Thirty-one thousand vacant positions?" she said. "OK, now we know why they were so behind in treating people, right? They didn't have any staff. That is huge. That's huge."

U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, had a similar reaction.
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THEY GET PAID TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON AND FIX IT!