The latest horrifying story out of the Veterans Affairs hospital system comes from Durham, North Carolina where a veteran was left in pain on the floor for a significant period of time before anyone working cared to help him.
A woman who witnesses the incident detailed what happened on her Facebook page, saying she had to alert a nurse about the man's situation because nobody else was paying attention.
"Yesterday (2/24/17) while at the Durham, NC VA Hospital, my husband Stephen McMenamin and I witnessed some very disturbing events. The man in the wheelchair on the left, were waiting in that waiting room at least 3 hours. The man bent over grabbing the chair, was yelling in pain and was borderline convulsing and almost falling out of his chair he was in so much pain. No one paid him any attention until I approached a nurse to please check on him. This gentleman sat in the waiting room in extreme pain for hours upon hours with very little attention paid to him," Hanna McMenamin wrote about the situation. "The man then asked multiple times for a place to lean back or lay down, and was completely disregarded by the nurse. Eventually after being completely neglected, he laid on the floor."
Late last year a VA dentist in Wisconsin was put on administrative leave after it was finally reported he was using dirty utensils on more than 500 veterans, putting them at risk for HIV and other deadly disease infection.
President Donald Trump and newly minted VA Secretary David Shulkin have promised to end extensive medical wait times, implement accountability measures for bad employees and to change the culture inside the VA hospital system.
