More than 100,000 United States military veterans are experiencing long waits for medical treatment, an audit of the United States Department of Veteran Affairs revealed yesterday.
The VA said that this week’s numbers come from a just-completed report in which officials attempted to get to the bottom of recent allegations concerning mismanagement and corruption within the agency.
Accusations that surfaced last month about the VA propelled the agency to the national spotlight and quickly exposed evidence that drew the ire of Americans outraged by the long waits that veterans have reportedly had to endure in order to receive treatment. At the height of the scandal, Sec. Eric Shinseki resigned from his post last month.
“All veterans deserve the best. They earned it,” US President Barack Obama said late last month.“Last week I said that if we found misconduct it would be punished, and I meant it.”
Now further action is expected from the White House upon the release of news concerning the latest internal VA audit.
According to Reuters, VA investigators looked into 731 federally-managed medical centers from May 12 to June 3, and found that 76 percent of the patients at those facilities, or roughly 100,000, have experienced long waits.
Of those, the report found, 57,436 patients had been waiting 90 days or more for an appointment as of May 17, 2014. Additionally, 63,869 patients requested appointments during the last decade that were ultimately never scheduled.
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