Veterans Affairs officials told representatives of Hawaii’s congressional delegation that military veterans only had to wait 30 days to see a primary care physician for the first time — just before a scathing audit revealed that new patients in Honolulu actually had the worst wait times in the entire system, 145 days.
The nationwide audit by the Veterans Health Administration released Monday came just four days after the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs Pacific Island Health Care System and other VA administrators held a 90-minute briefing with staff members from the offices of Hawaii’s two U.S. senators and two U.S. congresswomen in the wake of a scandal about alleged VA misconduct and mismanagement.
The discrepancy between the audit’s findings in Honolulu and what congressional staffers were told by Wayne Pfeffer, director of the Hawaii VA, on June 5 is frustrating for Hawaii’s two congresswomen and U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono.
"They spoke about 30 days. Nobody said 145," Hanabusa said. "I can’t imagine how someone administering the VA would not know the figures. Whether I may feel we were misled, the objective here is getting the veterans the services they are entitled to. The VA should be working with us and giving us good data to improve the level of service for veterans."
U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said that after the audit results came out Monday, she "personally called Mr. Pfeffer to question him about the discrepancy of his prior statement. He denied ever saying that wait times were 30-45 days. This dishonesty and lack of transparency about the severity of VA delays is unacceptable, despicable and disrespects our veterans.
"Until the Honolulu VA has leadership that is transparent and forthright, we cannot know the true scope of this problem. There is absolutely no excuse for dishonesty and the way this has been handled, and those responsible must be held accountable.
"Every single veteran waiting months just to see a doctor deserves answers."
Asked Wednesday about the discrepancy, VA spokeswoman Patricia Matthews told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an email, "There are no comments to provide at this time."
During the June 5 briefing at the Prince Kuhio Federal Building in Honolulu, "very little time was spent addressing the issues that every congressional office has been confronting on a day-to-day basis," said a congressional staff member who was in the briefing and recounted the discussion to the Star-Advertiser. "These issues range from wait times for new enrollees, access to care on neighbor islands and Veterans Health Administration staffing issues that have plagued not only our own local offices, but offices across the United States."
Toward the end of the briefing, when Pfeffer finally opened the meeting to questions, a congressional staffer reportedly asked, "Currently, what is the time frame that a new enrollee will remain on the New Enrollee Appointment Request List?"
After a representative from a different congressional office asked what the New Enrollee Appointment Request List was, Pfeffer reportedly spent three minutes explaining various waitlists and said that VA officials in Hawaii were "not where they would like to be in terms of how long a new enrollee waits for a primary care appointment."
Another congressional staffer reportedly then said, "We understand that, but that is not what was asked."
The staffer said Pfeffer then finally said that "the current time was somewhere around 30 days and then deferred to a member of his staff who was present from the Enrollments Department for additional details," the congressional staff member told the Star-Advertiser.
"She stated that the (New Enrollee Appointment Request List) list wait time was around 30 days, and they try and keep it under 50 days."
The VA wait list in Honolulu has been a problem for generations of military veterans, said Aiea resident Cliff Jenkins, a 66-year-old disabled Vietnam War veteran.
In the late 1990s, Jenkins said, it took more than a year for him to see a primary physician to get glasses and hearing aids after his eyesight and ears were damaged during active duty in the Marines.
"I just had to wait and play the game," Jenkins said. "Now that you’ve got all of the new ramp-up of military in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, it exacerbated the problem. It took an already stuck program and buried it."
On Monday, Hirono wrote a letter to the acting inspector general of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to verify a 14-day wait time that VA Pacific Islands Health Care System provided Hirono’s office for more than "91 percent of established patients requesting primary, specialty and mental health care appoints."
"Additionally," Hirono wrote, "the response did not address my request for information on the time it takes for newly registered patients to be established and seen by a VA Primary Care provider."
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Star-Advertiser reporter Kristen Consillio contributed to this report.
