'We Have No One': How Trump’s Dismantling of the VA Left a Veterans Hospital in Crisis

Résumé détaillé

Starting in July, ProPublica repeatedly asked the VA about evidence we’d found that short-staffing is hurting veterans‘ care.

John Falchetto was a survivor. In Vietnam, his river gunboat came under devastating rocket fire.

But this February, Falchetto, who had just turned 80, began to have piercing stomach pains.

Finally, Falchetto went to the VA hospital in East Orange, New Jersey.

A CT scan of Falchetto’s abdomen suggested his appendix had not only burst, but that it was gangrenous.

Months earlier, the ventilation system had malfunctioned, and the repair team was short-staffed.

This was not normal. But nothing had been normal at East Orange since President Donald Trump returned to office last year and set his sights on the VA.

The behemoth agency, which traces its roots to the Civil War, is both the country’s largest healthcare system and one of its most effective. It provides 9 million veterans what is essentially socialized medicine, often for free, under the cover of the American flag. The doctors, nurses and other staff are employed by the government.

Despite the occasional scandal and persistent short-staffing, studies have shown that the VA — where the doctors coordinate with one another and have deep expertise on veterans’ needs — has better outcomes than private care.

But in his second term, Trump has moved aggressively to upend this system, embracing a decades-long conservative campaign to effectively kneecap the VA’s government-run healthcare and shift veterans toward private doctors and hospitals.

Début de l'article, extrait de HuffPost. Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.