Memorial Day Also Remembers Veterans Who Lost Their Life In a VA Hospital.

VA Hospitals -  Memorial Day is a time to remember our service men and women who died while serving in the armed forces, but it's also a time to pay respect to the thousands of veterans who die every day in our VA hospitals all across the country.

Billy Smith and his family are using today to remember World War II Veteran Granpa Jim, shot 17 times in war, who passed away three years ago at their local VA hospital after undergoing routine bunyan surgery and never making it out alive.  "We dropped him off for a routine surgery and we never heard from him again," said Billy, who says the VA still has no record of him ever getting admitted in the first place.

The Smith Family is not alone.  Hundreds of thousands of families use Memorial Day to remember their fallen VA hospital heroes who went in to get routine medical care and ended up paying the price with their lives.

For many families, Memorial Day is a painful reminder of the lack of accountability in the VA system, were employees can't be fired even in the most egregious of circumstances.

Memorial Day honors veterans who lost their lives in a VA hospital

"When I was a resident, I was trying to save the life of my ICU patient crashing on the ventilator, and the x-ray technologist said he wasn't going to come in on a Friday night to do a stat chest x-ray because he lived 30 minutes a way and it was snowing outside," said Dr. Stanley Franklin, an internist who knows how hard it is to get anyone fired from the VA for gross incompetence.  "That place breeds death."

"Then there's the time my MI patient waited six days for a cardiac echo because the echo tech was on vacation for a week.  Oh and then there's that one time my patient bled to death after a nurse stuck him 87 times trying to get an IV started. The list goes on and on."

For many veterans the real war is not on foreign grounds with bombs and bullets, it's fighting for their lives every time they enter a VA hospital.  Please remember to honor your fallen VA patients who gave their lives so some VA employee could instead enjoy a fine potluck lunch.

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