Thursday, April 5, 2007

VA removes WRONG testicle

This is incredible! This administration keeps telling us they support the troops and yet the conditions at Walter Reed were abysmal at best and now this from another VA hospital. I am copying this article in its entirety because I can not believe this! What an outrage.

LOS ANGELES - An Air Force veteran has filed a federal claim after an operation at a Veterans Administration hospital in which a healthy testicle was removed instead of a potentially cancerous one.

Benjamin Houghton, 47, was to have had his left testicle removed June 14 at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center because there was a chance it could harbor cancer cells. It also was atrophied and painful.

But doctors mistakenly removed the right testicle, according to medical records and the claim, which seeks $200,000 for future care and unspecified damages. He still hasn’t had the other testicle removed.

“At first I thought it was a joke,” Houghton told the Los Angeles Times. “Then I was shocked. I told them, ’What do I do now?”’

Houghton, his wife, Monica, and their attorney, Dr. Susan Friery, said they hoped to get the VA’s attention by going public with the situation.

Dr. Dean Norman, chief of staff for the Greater Los Angeles VA system, has formally apologized to Houghton and his wife.

“We are making every attempt that we can to care for Mr. Houghton, but it’s in litigation, and that’s all we can tell you,” he said. The hospital changed practices as a result of the case, he added.

Even regular hospitals have systems in place to avoid these kinds of mistakes. How did this happen and to a vet? So much for this administrations repeated claims that they honor our vets-with the type of care they have been receiving, I do not think they are being honored at all. But I do think they are being subject to unspeakable horrors even after returning. Shame on you Mr. Bush-you have cut benefits to these people whom you purport to respect so much and to the very hospitals that provide care to them. It is no wonder this type of mistake has been made, they are underfunded again because of you Mr. Bush-your budget cuts to the most vulnerable programs so you can have more money for your "war game" or for the illegal occupation as many of us call it is criminal. I do not know how you sleep at night.

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