PHOENIX – According to a CNN report, the Carl T. Hayden VA Hospital in Phoenix had two waiting lists which left as many as 40 veterans waiting for care dead. A doctor alleges that the records that a waiting list even existed were shredded. The accusations by CNN reporting have recently prompted a Senate hearing on the matter.

The Phoenix VA Health Care web site states:

“Honoring America’s Veterans with quality health care services, part of the largest integrated health care system in the U.S.”

CNN interviewed Dr. Sam Foote who retired from the VA Center in Phoenix after 24 years. Dr. Foote alleges that the VA kept two list of appointments. One he called a sham list that showed veterans were being seen in 14-days while the other secretive list were those veterans awaiting appointments.

CNN reported that records that would indicate that such a list existed were shredded in an apparent cover-up.

“The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VA’s own internal rules,” said Foote in Phoenix. “They developed the secret waiting list,” said Foote, a respected local physician.

The CNN report covers the plight of U.S. Navy veteran Thomas Breen who died waiting for simple tests that could have saved his life.

Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake and Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Kyrsten Sinema have called for hearings. Senator McCain sent a letter to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki asking about the alleged waiting lists and if at least 40 veterans died as a result of the waiting lists, among other things.

According to CBS 5 in Phoenix, Sinema said:

“I am deeply disturbed by the allegations that delays in care and false record-keeping at the Phoenix VA Medical Center may have caused the deaths of Arizona veterans. We need a thorough investigation that holds those responsible for veteran deaths accountable.”

The report from Phoenix led KSDK in St. Louis to do a report on Albert Boyd—one of their local decorated Vietnam veterans.

When Boyd learned of the CNN report that the Phoenix VA had a secret set of records that hid its backlog of disability claims, he said it reminded him of his own struggles with the VA. Two years ago he hired a lawyer to fight his benefits battle with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He doesn’t expect a quick resolution.
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“Delay, deny, until you die. That’s what the veterans are saying now,” said Boyd.

Delays in the VA Health Care system are, unfortunately, nothing new. The delay until you die concept was developed around illnesses Vietnam veterans complained about concerning the use of Agent Orange.

Agent Orange was a defoliant manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The chemical was sprayed without restrictions between 1961 to 1971.

One Williams veteran told me that they would have to cover up in their jackets with their hoods in an effort to keep the chemical off of their bodies.

Like the Agent Orange issue, returning veterans began reporting symptoms of what has come to be known as Gulf War syndrome. The VA at first denied the existence of any disease only looking into the issue a few years later after media publicity led to documentaries and a 1998 television dramatization, Thanks of a Grateful Nation.