My Dad was treated at that hospital for the last 30 years of his life. He just died, recently, one month short of his 90th birthday.
Most of those years he drove himself to his doctor when the need manifested. The last couple of years his offspring took him.
The only delay we ever saw in his treatment was a couple of hours in the emergency room a couple times when we drove him to the hospital. That is the same delay we experienced in ERs in civilian hospitals with my mother-in-law.
My Dad needed 2 knee replacements that the VA never got around to for about 15 years. That was my Dad. His VA knee replacer called him dozens of times to get the job done. My Dad kept putting him off. My Dad, a Navy Pharmacists Mate (Corpsman/Medic) who invaded Iwo Jima, told me the convalescence scared him to death.
It seems to me that vets would all be better served if we were to take government secretaries in charge of the VA and hospital administrators in those VA hospitals that murdered vets and throw them in prison.
Then, the congress should invite the guys who run the VA hospital in Minneapolis to testify and tell them how the job is done.
My dad was a WWII Marine in the Pacific.....died at the age of 64. Lung cancer....never darkened a VA hospital's door. Didn't have to...
Like everything else the Obama Administration touches, it has been ruined