I am pulling my hair out. And I really don't have that much hair left to be pulling out.
The other day I received a letter from the eye clinic at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, to schedule an eye appointment. I called the listed number and got a message saying they were busy and to leave a message and someone would call back within a day. Of course, no one called back within a day. I e-mailed the patient advocate and was told that only two people answer the phones at the eye clinic and that's just how it is.
OK.
I wrote another e-mail to the patient advocate to say that her excuse was pretty lame. I thought the VA was going to be all about customer service from now on. She replied that she would pass my concerns on to higher-ups.
OK.
A couple of days later a fellow calls from the eye clinic. The earliest he can get me an appointment would be Nov. 14. Today is June 24. He says if I want an earlier appointment I could go to a VA satellite clinic 40 miles from my home.
I tell him that I live only 4 miles from the VA hospital. Why the heck would I want to go that far? I thought if I was service-connected at 100 percent that I had some priority and that I should get an appointment within 30 days. He said he didn't know anything about that. I know I shouldn't have, but I hung up the phone in frustration.
That describes most of my interaction with the VA … frustration.