Veterans sound off at VA meeting

Like many Permian Basin employers, the West Texas VA Health Care System has run into hard times staffing its facilities, which has impacted everything from scheduling appointments to answering calls.

To maintain communications with veterans in the health care system’s 33-county region, Director Michael L. Kiefer has been holding town hall meetings to hear questions, comments and concerns about the system. He stopped at the Ector County Administration Building Annex Monday evening and spoke to about 85 people.

He brought with him several other VA officials to take questions. Kiefer said the system sees about 17,000 veterans a year in five locations, including the clinic at State Highway 191 and Faudree Road.

Some of the items on veterans’ minds were lack of communication between VA hospitals, the phone system and lack of people to answer calls, an ever-changing cast of physicians, having to pay emergency room bills and confusion over whether the VA would pay for certain services outside the VA system.

VA Health System Community Relations Coordinator Iva Jo Hanslik said it appears as if the physician situation at the Permian Basin clinic is about to be more stable. She said a doctor will be there this week to care for patients in person, as opposed to via telemedicine.

A permanent doctor is expected in the next couple of weeks, she said.

Revelations of long waiting times, which may have led to veterans’ deaths last year, prompted rule changes, a pending reorganization of the VA system and installation of a new secretary of Veterans Affairs, Robert McDonald.