
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990                   TAG: 9004020189
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GIVE VETERANS MONEY INSTEAD OF CARE?

SINCE I have been a patient in several Veterans Administration hospitals over the past two years, I know at least a little whereof I speak. It seems to me that the government would save money if all the veterans were given $20,000 a year and the hospitals were torn down or turned into prisons. (In some cases, they seem to be disintegrating or being run on the punishment-and-treatment principle.)

There is new construction, but no new staff, and food is cut because of "budgetary constraints." There are contract nurses and doctors rather than staff. So-called professionals like dieticians aren't worth their salt. These same professionals are so afraid of the various unions, run by custodians, clerks, and dishwashers, that they need a quart of laxative a day.

Everyone passes the buck. "See your doctor; talk to the dietician; make an appointment with the chief of staff; the head nurse actually runs the ward; just walk in on the hospital director, he's a good guy." The fact is, no one wants responsibility, and the director wants to do things that show on the outside.

The patient is caught in the middle and often falls through bureaucratic cracks. In one case a patient was pulled off an operating table and told the procedure would be done when he was transferred.

If a lot of veterans weren't homeless or broke (more red tape, called rating), they wouldn't even use these Civil War relics.\ WILLIAM E. BEITZ\ ROANOKE

by CNB